Burning Secret
by Samtastic 3.0
Summary: One seemingly normal day, Lincoln accidentally burns his school to the ground. Though he isn't caught and no one is hurt, Lincoln can't help but feel horribly guilty. In the following days, he becomes overwhelmed with guilt, especially since everyone apparently believes the fire to be arson. Things get even worse when Lincoln discovers someone knows it was him...Cover by JFMstudios
1. Up in Flames

It was a nice spring day in the town of Royal Woods, Michigan. The birds were chirping, the flowers were blooming, all was calm.

At Royal Woods Elementary School, all was going as it normally did. Lincoln was eating lunch by himself, which he noticed had been happening a lot more recently. After a rather comical series of events at the Sadie Hawkins Dance a couple weeks ago, Lincoln had somehow helped all his friends get girlfriends.

His pal Rusty was dating Polly Pain, a girl on Lynn's roller derby team who always wore her roller skates and loved to move fast. They were a perfect couple, due to the fact that Rusty was in a "bicycle gang" and also liked moving fast.

His friend Liam was dating Tabby, a girl who was an "honorary roadie" of Luna's band. The two of them both loved rocking out, so they were also a perfect couple.

Zach was with Giggles, a friend of Luan's from clown school. They were good together because they both had a great sense of humor.

And lastly Clyde, Lincoln's best friend. After years of an unrequited crush on Lori, Clyde was finally starting to move on. Slowly, of course, but it was better than nothing. He was dating Haiku, a friend of Lucy's who was also a Goth and a poetry fanatic. The reason she and Clyde got along so well was because of their crushes on people who could never love them back: Lori and a Dracula-esque vampire boy who just turned 200.

Lincoln was happy for his friends, though he had to admit it was lonely without them around. As for his own girlfriend, Ronnie Anne, well…

Before Lincoln started dating Ronnie Anne, he had a big crush on this girl named Cristina. As with most young boys and their first crushes, he wasn't sure how to go about it, and kind of obsessed over her. She found out, and was so creeped out that she transferred to the school's other 5th Grade class just to get away from him. But one day, after literally running into each other in the hall, Lincoln apologized as they were picking their stuff up, explaining why he had acted the way he had. Cristina said she would think about accepting his apology, and that had been the last he had officially talked to her.

However, a coupe days ago, Lincoln had seen Cristina and Ronnie Anne sitting together, talking and laughing with each other in the library. He later asked Ronnie Anne about it, who told him the two had been doing the same subject for their history reports, and upon finding out, had decided to work together. This in turn helped them find out they had a lot in common.

So, Lincoln's friends were busy with their girlfriends, and his girlfriend was busy with her friend. Thus, he was left all alone. Oh well, at least it was corn dog day.

As Lincoln munched on his corn dog, his teacher, Mrs. Johnson walked in. She looked all around the cafeteria, before spotting him.

"Lincoln!" she called out, approaching him, "I was wondering if you could help me with something."

"Sure," Lincoln shrugged, "Whatcha need, Teach?"

"Well, I need…" Mrs. Johnson started, before stopping and looking at Lincoln funny, "Excuse me?"

Lincoln instantly turned red, "Sorry, Mrs. Johnson. Just thought I'd address you in a friendly way. I realize as my teacher it was disrespectful, and it shall not happen again."

Mrs. Johnson looked at him sternly…before chuckling, "It's alright, Lincoln. It's just that none of you have ever tried to be friendly to me before. Anyway, the other 5th Grade teacher, Mr. White, had to run home to take care of a family thing, so I need to grade BOTH of our tests from last week by the end of lunch. Since I need to do that, I was wondering if you could run an errand for me."

"Sure," Lincoln nodded, "What is it?"

"I just need you to take this flash drive to Professor Thompson," she said, handing him a small, black flash drive.

"Who?"

"The science teacher," she explained, "You'll have him next year. His class is at the end of the back hall. Just tell him this is that information I got for him."

"Ok," Lincoln said, finishing his corndog in one bite as he took the flash drive from his teacher, who hurried away.

Stopping to throw his tray away, Lincoln looked around. He didn't see ANY of his friends anywhere, but it was no big deal. He'd find them when he got back.

As Lincoln hurried through the halls (while making sure not to run), he couldn't help but get a bad feeling in his gut, like he knew something was wrong. But that didn't make any sense, he hadn't seen or heard anything that would imply something bad. Maybe it was just the fact that the cafeteria had served green beans instead of French fries, and they weren't sitting well with the corn dog.

After a couple minutes, Lincoln made it to the end of the back hall. Facing towards each other on opposite walls were two doors. One read ' **Science Lab** ' and the other read ' **Prof. Thompson** '.

"Wow," Lincoln muttered, knocking on the door, "This guy has his OWN office. Fancy."

After a moment, a short, grey-haired man opened the door. He looked down at Lincoln, "Yes?"

"Professor Thompson?" Lincoln asked, at which the man nodded, "Mrs. Johnson said she got some stuff for you." He handed the man the flash drive, which he eagerly took.

"Wonderful!" he exclaimed, "Young man, do you know what this is?" Lincoln shook his head. "This," Professor Thompson eagerly pointed at the flash drive, "Is what your teacher's uncle, who was a renowned scientist, was working on before he passed away. If I can complete his theories, the world can have a better tomorrow. Do tell Mrs. Johnson I greatly appreciate this." At that, he closed the door, leaving Lincoln by himself.

"Well, that's cool," he shrugged, "Whatever was on that thing sounds important, so at least it can be used by someone who apparently knows what he's doing."

As Lincoln turned and started to head back to the cafeteria, he heard a light creak. Turning, he saw the door to the lab slowly open. Raising an eyebrow, he figured it just wasn't shut right. He walked over to shut it, when it opened all the way.

Curious, he looked inside to see if someone was in the room. There shouldn't be, seeing as it was lunch hour.

Looking around the dark room, he noticed it was set up like a traditional lab: about a dozen 4-person desks, each with a sink on it. There was a chemical shower in the back, as well as a couple hazmat suits.

"Looks like 6th grade won't be so bad," he muttered, fully stepping into the room to get a better look. It definitely looked like it would be an interesting class, mainly using chemicals, like what Lisa used.

'tink'

Lincoln looked over to one of the desks to see that a beaker had fallen off.

"Strange," Lincoln muttered to himself, as he walked over to pick it up. He looked at the desk and all around it, but there didn't seem to be any reason for the beaker to have fallen. The only thing he could come up with was that maybe the person who had used it last had set it on the very edge of the desk, and it just finally fell off.

Crouching down to inspect it, he noticed that the beaker itself was undamaged, though a tiny bit of liquid had poured out. Now, having a genius scientist for a younger sister, Lincoln was educated on basic lab safety, including handling spills. Looking at the beaker, there was no label on it to tell what it was.

"Should I get someone?" Lincoln asked out loud, "Or should I just clean it up?" Taking a sniff, Lincoln didn't notice any strange smells in the air, and looking at it, he noticed that the spill was relatively small. He could easily wipe it up in a couple minutes, whereas getting someone to help would likely take at least 10 minutes.

Deciding it was pointless to waste time, Lincoln headed over to the wall where the paper towel dispenser was. He noticed it was empty, yet on the edge of the counter was another almost identical to it.

"Odd," he muttered, taking a couple paper towels from it. Weird that someone would put one holder on the wall, but not both.

Deciding not to dwell on it, Lincoln pulled a couple more towels out, noticing a light scraping sound as he pulled. Paying it no mind, he headed to the spill and quickly cleaned it up. He then walked back to the counter and threw the towels in the trash can. He then headed back to where the spill had been and checked to see if there was any residue or if it had made the floor slick.

As he wiped his finger where the spill had been, he suddenly smelled smoke. He turned around…

Just in time to see the trashcan burst into flames!

"HOLY COW!" Lincoln cried in shock, jumping back. Looking around the room, he noticed a fire extinguisher by the door. He ran over and grabbed it, before running back to the trash can. Staying a safe distance away, he pulled the nozzle and sprayed at the fire, feeling relief as he watched the flames die down…

Only to have his mind blown when the flames started back up and actually started "crawling" on the stream of foam. Lincoln dropped the fire extinguisher and threw himself over the teacher's desk, right as the extinguisher exploded in flames, sending bits of fire everywhere.

Peering over the desk, Lincoln saw that not only had the blinds caught on fire, but so had the instruction manuals on all the students' desks. Each desk lit up, and the beakers that had chemicals in them exploded.

As the room started filling up with smoke, Lincoln ran to the door, knowing he had to get out of there. However, right by the door was a coat rack, and the sole coat on it had caught on fire. By the time Lincoln noticed this, it was too late. He bumped into it and knocked it out into the hallway, where it brushed against the student artworks on the wall, quickly setting them on fire in a domino effect.

Stepping out of the room, Lincoln watched in horror as the hallway slowly caught on fire. Snapping out of his shock, he quickly ran over and pulled the fire alarm…

Only to cry out in anger when the handle broke off in his hand.

Fearing for his life and the lives of all the students in the school, Lincoln looked around, trying to formulate a plan. Why wasn't the sprinkler system going off? It should have started automatically once the smoke detectors went off…

"CRAP!" Lincoln cried out, suddenly remembering that yesterday some students had flushed a bunch of junk down the toilets in the boy's bathroom, damaging the pipes. As such, the whole water system had been turned off while it was worked on.

Knowing he didn't have a moment to lose, Lincoln dashed down the hall, past the flames, until he got to the hall's other fire alarm. He quickly, yet carefully, pulled it down, and sure enough, the alarm went off.

 **BBBBBRRRRRRRRIIIINNNNNNNGGGGGGGGG!**

Instantly, the students exited the cafeteria. Thankfully it was right by the front doors, so everyone made it out pretty quickly.

As Lincoln raced down the hallway, he couldn't help but think one thing: he had just started a fire that was likely going to damage the majority of the school. Even though it was an accident, there was no way he was getting out of this scot-free.

"That doesn't matter!" he scolded himself; he had to find out if his friends and family were ok.

* * *

Outside, across the street from the school the teacher's were trying to maintain order. Quickly gathering the students up in their respective grades, they each began taking attendance.

Lincoln burst out of the school, one of the last to do so. He frantically looked across the street, trying to see if his friends and sisters had made it out ok.

He sighed in relief upon seeing Lucy, Lola, and Lana (the only three sisters that went to school with him) standing together, right in between their grades.

"Lincoln!" Mrs. Johnson was looking around, "Lincoln Loud!"

Taking a deep breath, Lincoln jogged over to his class. Immediately, his friends surrounded him.

"Lincoln!" Clyde cried, throwing his arms around his best friend, "I freaked out when I couldn't find you."

Lincoln patted his best friend's back, "It's ok, Clyde, I'm fine."

"Glad you are, Lame-o," Ronnie Anne said, wrapping her arm around him after Clyde had let go, "Where were you?"

"Oh…" Lincoln froze as all his friends' eyes fell on him. There was no way he could tell them he had started the fire, he would be in so much trouble. "I uh…had to run an errand for Mrs. Johnson."

Before any of his friends could speak up, four voices cried, "Lincoln!"

His sisters and Mrs. Johnson ran over to him. The twins tackled him in a hug, crying that they were glad he was safe. Lucy stood over him, and stated in a monotone voice that she was also glad he was safe. Mrs. Johnson sighed in relief as she checked his name off her attendance list.

"Oh thank god!" Mrs. Johnson cried, "Everyone is accounted for!"

Despite hearing that there were apparently no injuries or casualties, this did not soothe Lincoln's thoughts as he watched his school slowly burn. Burn to the ground because of HIM.

"I am so screwed," he muttered to himself, as the fire engines pulled up.

* * *

 _"And in other news," the news anchor read, "The back half Royal Woods Elementary was burned to the ground today. By some honest-to-God miracle, no one was hurt."_

In the Loud house, all the siblings sat together on the couch. Lucy, Lana, and Lola sat in Lori, Leni, and Luan's laps, respectively. Like all the other parents, Mr. and Mrs. Loud had been horrified of the thought of their children's school catching on fire.

As soon as the kids got home, they were swamped by their older siblings. They hugged them and thanked the lord that they were alright. Now, just before they were to have dinner, they all gathered in front of the TV to watch the news report on what happened. As stated, the younger siblings were in their older siblings' laps, while Luna held Lincoln's hand.

Lincoln was standing at the side of the couch, staring at the TV with dread. Even though the fire fighters had managed to put out the fire before it completely burned down the building, half of it was still gone. Because of him. Sure it had been an accident, but that didn't make it any easier.

 _"We just now have the official report," the news anchor stated, "We go live to the scene of the crime with the fire chief."_

"Crime!" Lincoln cried out, causing Luna to rub his hand and tell him it was ok.

 _The fire chief appeared on screen with one of the roaming reporters, "Well, it was hard to determine what happened at first, though thanks to some investigating, we know for certain this was arson."_

Lincoln's eyes went wide. How could it be considered arson when it had been an accident?

 _"We found traces of a man-made fire starter," the chief stated, "Made out of vegetable oil and tequila, it was almost undetectable, though we were able to find it. Apparently someone laced the school's science lab with it, thus starting the fire."_

Lincoln felt his mind go blank. The liquid he had cleaned up. That must have been the fire starter. But how? I mean, of course it would cause a small fire to grow, but how could it just cause the trash can to burst into flames? Lincoln hadn't recalled seeing or smelling anything in the trash when he got the paper towels, just some crumpled up papers.

 _"Do you have any suspects?"_

 _"Well, according to street cameras, no one was seen entering the school who wasn't supposed to. That means it was likely an inside job. Because of general disdain for school, we naturally suspect it was a student," the fire chief explained, before turning to face the camera, "And just so you know, you little punk, when we catch you, you will face the utmost punishment for your crime. I'm not in charge of the school, but I can say for certain that expulsion and juvie will be part of your punishment. If I were you, I'd turn myself in, because dragging this out will only make it worse."_

Lincoln felt himself go white as he started trembling. Expulsion and juvie would follow him for the rest of his life! He'd be lucky if he could get a job as a Burpin' Burger janitor.

"Bro, you ok?" Luna asked, pulling him in for a hug. The rest of the sisters looked at their brother, noticing the concern in his face.

"Y…yeah," he forced out, "It's j…j…just scary to think that someone at my own school would ac…ac…accidentally start that giant fire."

"Oh no, Lincoln," Lola spoke in a haughty tone, "A fire like that is NOT accidental! Some punk started it, more-than-likely as some super prank. They'll probably lay low for years, and then reveal it was them before they flee the country!"

"That's a bit overdramatic, don't you think?" Lisa asked, rolling her eyes, "More than likely it's just some pyromaniac who harbors an extreme dislike of school, who finally just snapped. They'll likely be caught within a week at most, because those kinds of people always slip up and give themselves away."

"Yeah, and then the jerk who started it will get what's coming to them!" Lori exclaimed angrily, wrapping Lucy in a bone-crushing hug, "No one tries to hurt MY siblings!"

"Ow," Lucy emotionlessly stated as her older sister crushed her.

"Yeah, this hot head will go up in flames when he's caught," Luan joked, earning groans from her siblings.

As the sisters started getting riled up, Lincoln couldn't help but feel extremely nervous. But he shouldn't be, right? The fire was an accident, and no one was hurt. So in that case, there was really no reason for him to ruin his life by confessing.

Right?

* * *

That night, as Lincoln looked online, he grew weary at all the news of the fire. Nearly everything he looked at had some message along the lines of "We will find you!" Even though no one knew he was to blame, he couldn't help but feel everyone knew exactly who they were addressing when they wrote that.

Deciding to take his mind off what happened, Lincoln decided to go to **Bplus** , one of his favorite gaming websites.

As he logged on and looked at the wide variety of games, he couldn't help but appear to notice a…certain type of games.

 **The Flame Prince.**

 **Firefighter Extreme.**

 **Escape Prison.**

 **Forest Fire Beware.**

Feeling nauseous, Lincoln slammed his laptop shut and decided to read an Ace Savvy comic. He reached under his bed into the box where all his comics were located and grabbed a random one.

 _Ace Savvy vs. The Fire Aliens._

He tossed it aside and grabbed another one.

 _Ave Savvy vs. The Mad Arsonist._

He again tossed it aside and grabbed another, muttering, "Third time's the charm." He picked it up and looked at the cover.

 _Ace Savvy in Whodunit!_

Now feeling extremely queasy, he put the comics back in the box and picked up his stuffed rabbit, Bun-Bun.

"Ok, Bun-Bun," he muttered to his cherished childhood toy, "It'll be fine, right? I didn't do anything wrong, right?" Of course, the toy merely stared back at him, not saying or doing anything. It had been years since the last time Lincoln had actually tried to have a conversation with his toy.

Despite it only being 8:00, and his bedtime not being until 10:00, Lincoln decided to just get ready for bed. He could sleep in tomorrow, seeing as school was cancelled for the rest of the week (it was Wednesday). Over the next 4 days the burnt rubble would be cleaned up, and then school would resume the following Monday, with any classrooms that had been damaged having class in some trailers that would be placed on the football field. Science class cancelled until they caught the arsonist.

"I'm an arsonist," Lincoln muttered, slightly unnerved by the thought as he changed into his pajamas.

As he turned off his light and climbed into bed, he thought to himself, 'There's no evidence that I did it. Just lay low, and it'll all blow over.'

* * *

 _Lucy, Lola, Lana, Clyde, Rusty, Liam, Zach, Ronnie Anne, and Mrs. Johnson were all tied up and gagged in the cafeteria. They were struggling to escape, with no luck._

 _"Well, well, well," a voice snarled, as a figure entered the cafeteria, "Looks like the gang's all here."_

 _Everyone's eyes went wide as they saw who the figure was: Lincoln. Instead of his usual orange shirt and blue jeans, he was wearing a stereotypical "gangster tuxedo" complete with a black fedora._

 _"Oom!" Lola cried, trying to ask what was going on._

 _"Glad you asked, little sister," Lincoln smirked at his captives, "You see, the fire I started the other day failed to take you out, so I'm doing the only obvious thing: starting another to remove the thorns in my side."_

 _Their eyes all went wide as they cried into their gags and struggled to escape._

 _Lincoln pulled out two bottles, one of tequila and one of vegetable oil, and a lighter. He smirked dangerously at the group as he began pouring the bottles all over them. They tried to shake the contents off, to no effect. In seconds they were each practically drenched._

 _"Now, time to light it up," Lincoln grinned wildly, seeing the looks of fear on his friends' and sisters' faces. He lit the lighter, and dropped it to the ground right in front of Mrs. Johnson…_

* * *

Downstairs, the sisters were sitting in the living room, just lounging about, each doing their own thing. Of course, the older sisters were still watching over Lucy, Lana, and Lola, as well as Lisa who was checking them to make sure they hadn't had any negative effects of the fire, despite the fact that they hadn't been anywhere near the flames.

Lori was texting Bobby, asking if Ronnie Anne was ok. Luna, Luan, Lynn, and Lucy were making sure their friends were ok. Lisa was checking Lola and Lana, and Leni was playing with Lily.

Despite the events of the day, all was relatively calm.

"AAAAHHHHH!"

They all jumped up in shock.

"What the heck!" Luna cried, as they all looked up the stairs, "That came from Lincoln's room."

They all stopped what they were doing and hurried up the stairs to their brother's room. They threw the door open and found Lincoln on the floor, tangled up in his bed sheets. He was flailing around, and had a look of terror on his red face.

"Bro!" Luna cried, dropping to her knees and grabbing Lincoln by the shoulders, "What happened? What's wrong?"

"I…I had a dream…a nightmare," Lincoln sputtered out, "The fire was…the fire! Oh god!"

Luna wrapped her brother in a hug and held him close, rubbing her hand on his back. The rest of the sisters looked at each other with concern. Lincoln was clearly handling the fire the worst out of the four siblings. After all, Lucy and the twins barely seemed affected by it.

"Linky, it's ok," Leni spoke up, getting down on her knees and wrapping Lincoln in a hug. Lily, who was still in Leni's arms, also hugged her brother, looking at him with sadness as though she could tell he was upset.

"Yeah," Lori said, joining the group hug, "The cops will find out who did this, and they'll pay."

"They'll get what's coming to them, that's for sure," Lynn said, as the rest of the sisters slowly joined in the hug, trying to comfort their distressed brother.

Lincoln looked at all his sisters, and tears started to spill from his eyes. Even if the fire was an accident, he knew he needed to come clean, otherwise the guilt would tear him up inside. Not to mention the punishment would probably be worse.

The punishment. Even if he explained the fire had been an accident, would he still be punished with expulsion and arrest? After all, the fire chief said they found traces of a man-made fire starter, which honestly didn't make any sense. But then again, the trash can just bursting into flames and the fire extinguisher accelerating the fire didn't make sense either. Why had it happened? Was it just rotten luck? Was he cursed?

It didn't matter. What mattered was that everyone thought the fire was started on purpose, and everyone was looking for the "culprit" responsible. He couldn't come clean, because he knew his life would be ruined, and his family would probably disown him. The same family that was currently giving him all of their love to make him feel better. This just made him cry harder.

* * *

 **So, Lincoln accidentally burned down part of his school, but everyone thinks it's arson. Now, as police search for the culprit, he's slowly letting the guilt get to him.**

 **But were you paying attention, dear readers? Clearly, some things aren't adding up.**

 **R &R**


	2. Aftermath

**Wow, over a dozen reviews, favorites and follows after only one chapter. Thanks to you all.**

 **Hope you enjoy this next chapter :)**

* * *

 _Ace Savvy and his sidekick, One-Eyed Jack, were standing in front of a house. It was a nice, two-story house…that was currently on fire, with the homeowners trapped inside, due to boards on all the windows.._

 _"You'll never get away with this, Mad Arsonist!" Savvy cried, glaring at the villain in front of him, a tall, well-built man wearing a burnt fire-fighter's outfit, with a flame-thrower on his back and a gas mask covering his face._

 _"AH HA HA HA!" The Mad Arsonist cackled, "I already have! That family doesn't stand a chance. They're getting what they deserve!"_

 _"Why?" One-Eyed Jack cried in despair, clutching his leg, which had third-degree burns on it._

 _"They turned against me," the pyromaniac growled, as he looked…at the Loud house. Mrs. Loud was desperately trying to break the board off one of the upstairs windows, to no effect. Glaring at the woman, he turned back to Ace and fired his flame-thrower at the heroes. Though Ace jumped aside, Jack was sadly a second too late, getting the left half of his torso burned in the process._

 _"What do you mean?" Ace cried, rushing to help his friend, "Why did they turn against you? Who are you?"_

 _At that point, the Mad Arsonist pulled off his mask, revealing his sinister face, "The name's Loud, Lincoln Loud."_

* * *

Lincoln's eyes snapped open and he almost shot up and yelled out…if not for an arm around his torso and a hand clamped over his mouth.

"Sshhh, it's ok," a calming voice said, as he was pulled down into a hug. Looking to the side, he saw he was in Luna's arms.

Oh, right. After the sisters had managed to calm him down earlier, Lincoln told them he'd be fine, but they didn't believe him. Because of their close sibling bond, Luna said she would stay with him for the night. He tried to politely decline her offer, though she stated she was not offering; her little bro was clearly upset and needed comfort. When he pointed out the fact that she had to get up early for school, Luna just said Luan would come wake her up.

Thus, a few minutes later, Luna came into his room in her pajamas and crawled into bed with her bro. She wrapped her arms around him in a hug, and after telling him she loved him and that everything would be fine, she was out like a light.

It had taken Lincoln a few minutes before he was finally calm enough to fall asleep. But of course, his slumber didn't last long.

"Another nightmare about the fire?" she asked, stroking his head.

"Yeah," he muttered, as he pulled her arm tighter over him, as though he was afraid she would disappear.

"It's all gonna be ok," Luna said, tightening her hug, "Whoever started the fire did it in the back half of school during lunch. That means it was most likely done as a vicious "prank", not meant to hurt anyone."

"But people still could have been hurt," Lincoln sighed, "Even if the fire was an accident."

"Bro," Luna said, still keeping hold of her baby brother, "A fire like that doesn't start on accident. Plus, they said they found that fire starter. That means it had to be arson. I know you probably don't wanna think one of your school-mates is capable of something so bad, but sadly one of them is. Some people aren't who you think they are."

Hearing this made Lincoln queasy. His closest sister was TALKING to the very person she was ripping on, but she didn't know it. That made Lincoln feel even more horrible than he already did.

"Yeah, I know," he muttered, as he closed his eyes and tried to get back to sleep.

Luna frowned at her brother. Her roadie Chunk had a therapist for a cousin, and said therapist was very knowledgeable in PTSD, which is clearly what Lincoln was dealing with. As she drifted off, she was thinking it wouldn't be a bad idea to give the lady a call, just in case.

* * *

Lincoln didn't get any more sleep that night. He was too worried about the nightmares he would likely have if he tried. Thus, he lay still all night, listening to his sister's light breathing. What was weird was that in all honesty, it wasn't that hard for Lincoln to stay awake; he was tired, but he just couldn't fall asleep.

Finally, at 6:45, Lincoln heard his door slowly creak open. He closed his eyes as Luan walked over and shook Luna's shoulder, telling her it was time to get up. His sister slowly awoke, and tried to be careful not to wake him as she got out of bed.

After she was up, the two looked at each other, before looking at Lincoln.

Luna reached over and stroked his head as she muttered, "I hope he gets to feeling better. I hate seein' him like this."

"I hear ya," Luan nodded, patting her brother's arm, "Did he have any nightmares last night?"

"Just one," Luna admitted, "I was able to calm him down before he freaked out and woke up the whole house. Thankfully, I think that was it. He didn't wake up any other time."

"That's good," Luan muttered, "Come on, we gotta get ready for school."

At that, the two headed out, before Luna paused. She leaned over her brother's (supposedly) sleeping form and kissed his forehead, "Love ya, little bro."

Lincoln, who had heard everything, couldn't help but feel touched at his sisters' concern for him. It felt so good knowing they cared.

"Love you, too, sis," he muttered peacefully…only to freeze as he realized he had just told them he was awake.

Thanking quickly, Lincoln slowly opened his eyes, blinking a couple times to make it look like he was just waking up.

"You're awake, bro?" Luna asked, somewhat skeptically.

"Yeah," Lincoln fake yawned, "I was kinda in and out of sleep, then I heard my door open."

"Sorry to wake you, Lincoln," Luan apologized, "I just came in to get Luna."

"You should get some more sleep, bro," Luna said, "After all, you don't have school, and you look like you could use some extra z's."

"Thanks," Lincoln said, getting up, "But now that I'm awake, I'm kinda hungry."

"Come on, we'll get some breakfast," Luan said, heading out of the room.

The three made their way downstairs, where the rest of the older sisters were. Lori was making a pot of coffee (which Lincoln, remembering his attempts at acting "grown-up" to get to the adults table, shuddered upon seeing, knowing to avoid it), Leni was waiting for the toaster to give her the waffles she put in, and Lynn was eating a bowl of fruit and a bran muffin.

"Morning, guys," Lori said, though her eyebrows rose in curiosity when she saw her brother, "Linc, what are you doing up? You don't have school."

"Woke up when Luan came to get Luna, and was feeling peckish," Lincoln shrugged, walking to the cupboard to get some cereal.

The older sisters shared a look. On weekends, Lincoln wasn't up until one of them (or sometimes their parents) dragged him out of bed around 11AM. So for him to be up so early on a day when he KNEW he could sleep in, well, it kinda worried them.

Before anyone could say anything, Lana and Lola walked in, both looking exceptionally tired.

"Why'd you wake me?" Lola grumbled to her twin, as she grabbed a bowl and stood behind her brother, who handed her the box of cereal, "We don't have to wake up early."

"Sorry," Lana apologized, looking less tired than her twin, "I forgot we didn't have school, and when it's a school night, I just set the alarm, force of habit."

"Whatever," Lola grumbled, "I'm getting a bite to eat, then I'm going back to sleep. I need my beauty rest."

Lana rolled her eyes, but said nothing else. After that, the Loud siblings sat at the grownups table as they ate their breakfast.

As they ate, the sisters kept glancing at Lincoln, which he noticed. He knew they were all still worried about him. He figured he had to do something to get them to stop fretting over him; after all, they were watching him like hawks, and with how stressed he was, he was sure they would notice it sooner or later.

"So," he spoke up at last, turning to the twins, "How are you two doing today?"

"We're fine," they answered in unison. Each of them (save for maybe Leni) knew that Lincoln was trying to shift the focus away from himself, and they weren't having it.

"How are _you_ , Lincoln?" Lola asked, "You seemed pretty upset yesterday."

"Yeah," Lana added, "That fire really got to you."

"It clearly upset you the most out of all of us." Lincoln jumped nearly three feet as he turned and saw Lucy, holding a plate with burnt buttered toast, standing right behind him. As usual, neither he nor any of the other sisters had noticed her.

Calming down, Lincoln spoke up, "Well yeah, I mean, our school caught on fire yesterday. It was terrifying. I'm surprised you three aren't more shaken up about it."

"Why would we be?" Lana asked, "I mean, yeah, it was a big fire, but it wasn't really that dangerous for any of us."

"It burned down almost half the school," Lincoln argued. At that moment, Mr. and Mrs. Loud, both dressed for work, walked in. They said nothing as they listed to their children's conversation.

"But it started at the back half," Lola countered, "While pretty much everyone was in the front half, so we had plenty of time to get out."

"It is clear whatever twisted mind committed such an atrocity was clearly going for damage to the property, not the student body," Lucy said, munching on her breakfast.

"Well, it was still messed up," Lincoln argued, "Imagine if the fire alarm wasn't pulled when it was. Then there could have been even more damage, and someone actually could have been hurt."

"But the fire alarm WAS pulled, bro," Luna spoke up, "So there's really no reason to be this upset."

"You're downer than someone who just lost the big game," Lynn spoke up, "Just let it go."

"C'mon, Linc," Luan spoke up, "Stop feeling so down. After all, you're the fire that lights up our house." She chuckled, only to grimace at the glares her sisters sent her way.

"Yeah," Leni nodded, "Lucy and the twins aren't upset over it, so there's really no reason for you to be, Linky. It was a bad fire, but it's over now."

"I concur," Lisa spoke up, "While the fire was terrible, you and your classmates were in no immediate danger, so there's really no reason for your stress levels to be this high. It's not healthy."

"Yeah," Lori shrugged, "Not to be harsh, twerp, but it kinda seems like you're making a big deal out of nothing. I mean, the fire obviously wasn't nothing, but you're just acting like it was a lot worse than it is."

"WELL, YOU ALL DIDN'T HAVE TO RUN THROUGH THE FLAMES, SO OF COURSE YOU DON'T GET WHAT I'M GOING THROUGH!" Lincoln cried, finally getting fed up as he threw his arms up, tears spilling from his eyes as he did so.

All of his family stared at him in shock, surprised at his outburst.

"Son…" his father stepped forward and placed a hand on his shoulder, "What do you mean? Weren't you in the cafeteria with the rest of your class?"

As his annoyance towards his sisters slowly subsided, Lincoln slowly came to his senses and realized what he had just said.

"I…I…" His sisters and parents were all looking at him in concern, and he just couldn't leave them in the dark, "I…was running an errand for Mrs. J…Johnson. I was at the science professor's office, which is…which is right by the science lab." At this, he took a moment to catch his breath and wipe his eyes, trying not to break down crying.

No one said anything. Mr. and Mrs. Loud looked at each other with great concern, and the sisters all suddenly felt horribly guilty for brushing off their brother's stress.

No one said anything as they all gathered around Lincoln in a hug, holding him tight.

After a few minutes, Rita spoke up, "Everyone be ready to go in 10 minutes, please." She turned to her husband, "Honey, you take the girls to where they need to go: older sisters to high school, Lisa to her college lecture, and younger sisters to daycare with Lily."

Despite the babyish thought of daycare, none of the younger sisters complained. They had a feeling as to why they weren't staying home.

"I'm calling in to work," Rita continued, "And taking Lincoln to a therapist."

"Here, Mom," Luna said, handing her mother a card, "This is Chunk's cousin, Sylvia. She deals primarily with PTSD. Tell her Chunk sent you."

"Thanks, Luna," her mother nodded, as the sisters all filed out of the room, casting sympathetic glances at their brother as they did so.

Lincoln was left in his mother's grasp for a moment longer, before she released him. "Sweetie, go get dressed," she ordered, "I'm going to call this Sylvia lady and see if I can get you in to see her."

"You don't have-" Lincoln started, but was cut off.

"Lincoln, you are clearly letting the stress of this get to you," Rita said, "You need to talk to someone."

"There's 12 someones for me to talk to in this house alone," Lincoln muttered, "Not to mention all my friends."

"That may be true," Rita nodded, "But I think in something like this, you need to talk to a PROFESSIONAL. Now, go get dressed and ready to leave, please."

Lincoln wanted to argue, but he knew it was pointless. As he walked up to his room, he wondered how the appointment would go. Would he break down again? Would he bite the woman's head off for pressing too much? Would he have a slip of the tongue and accidentally confess to starting the fire?

"I said it before and I'll say it again," he muttered, "I am so screwed."

* * *

Half an hour later, Lincoln and Rita entered a building that was actually just down the block from her office. The building was the therapist office where Chunk's cousin worked. Upon calling her and mentioning Chunk's name, Sylvia actually stated she had only one client scheduled for the day, and wouldn't be in until after 1, but for her cousin, she'd make an exception.

Thus, as they entered, they heard someone entered behind them. Turning, they saw a woman who appeared to be in her early 30s walking in.

"You folks the Louds?" she asked, and Lincoln could hear the slight British accent in her voice.

"Yes," Rita nodded, "This is my son Lincoln. He goes to Royal Woods Elementary, the school that caught on fire yesterday."

"Oh yes," Sylvia nodded, as the three made their way to her office, "I heard about that. It's a miracle that no one was hurt. I hope they catch the bastard that started it soon. Kinda scares me to think someone like that is on the loose. Scares me even more to think that it's a kid."

As they entered her office, with Rita hanging back and pecking him on the cheek, telling him she'd be right outside in the waiting area, Lincoln felt his dread return. He wasn't some messed up kid who tried to burn down his school, but he was lying by not admitting what he did.

As Sylvia sat down in her chair grabbed her pen and notebook, Lincoln climbed on the couch, feeling increasingly nervous. What would he say? Technically, if he didn't want to ruin his life, he had to LIE to this woman, a person trained to pick up on small things people did to tell how they were thinking.

"Once again, I am so screwed," he muttered to himself, as Sylvia announced that she was ready to start whenever he was.

* * *

After another half-hour, the door to Sylvia's office opened. Lincoln stepped out, looking dazed.

Rita, who was putting her phone down with a look of unease at the text she had just received, looked up at her son as he walked over to her.

"Sweetie, are you ok?" she asked.

Lincoln opened his mouth to answer her, but no words came out. Sylvia took this moment to take Mrs. Loud aside.

"Mrs. Loud, your son is clearly dealing with some PTSD due to having to run through the flames in that hallway. I would suggest you take him home, put him in a calm environment, and not bring up the fire. It's clearly too upsetting for him to talk about. I barely got more than 5 words out of the kid before he broke down bawling. Then, we just sat, him trying not to break down again."

"I see," Rita said nervously, "I understand what you're saying, it makes perfect sense, but…there may be a slight problem with not bringing up the incident again."

"Just keep him home for a little while," Sylvia shrugged, "That way he won't have to go to school and see the damage."

"That's not what I mean," Rita said, as the sound of squealing tires was suddenly heard. The three of them looked to the front doors, where a couple of vans were parked outside.

"Oh crap," Rita muttered, grabbed her son and pulled him away from the doors, then turned to Sylvia and asked, "What do I owe you?

"Hey, any friend of the family is free," Sylvia replied, looking past Rita to outside the doors, where people with cameras were standing as though waiting for something.

"Thank you," Rita nodded, "This place got a back door?"

"Sadly no," Sylvia said, "The only other exit is the fire exit, and the alarm goes off if you go out that way."

"Crap!" Rita muttered again, "Thank you again for your help." At that, she grabbed Lincoln by the shoulders and started pushing him to the front doors, whispering, "One of Leni's friends was asking how you and you sisters were doing after yesterday, and somehow that led to her telling a bunch of people that you were IN the fire. And apparently, one of those kids has a news anchor for a dad."

Lincoln's eyes went wide, "How'd they find us?"

"Apparently, Leni asked Luna what Chunk's cousin's name is, and Luna absent-mindedly responded," Rita said, stopping at the door, "Brace yourself, Sweetie."

She pushed open the door, and at least half-a-dozen microphones were shoved in Lincoln's face.

"Kid, did you see who started the fire?"

"Was it a student, or a teacher?"

"Have you been checked out for smoke inhalation?"

"Do you think the arsonist is just getting started?"

"Come on, kid, tell us what ya saw."

"Are they threatening you if you reveal their name?"

Lincoln felt his head spinning. He couldn't focus with all these people around him. He felt like any moment he was gonna blurt out the truth!

 _Suddenly, he could see his sisters looking mad, even madder than the time he posted embarrassing videos of them online, as they slammed the door in his face, before he was handcuffed and thrown in the back of a police car._

"Sweetie!" Lincoln was brought back to reality when he felt his mother's hand on his shoulder. He looked at her, and realized he was staring to cry again.

"I…" He had no idea what to say. But he knew he had to say something, "I…I did it."

No one said anything, all of them just stared at him. Lincoln was sure all his friends would see this when they got home. Or heck, they'd probably get alerts on their phones and watch it during lunch. Whenever they saw it, he was sure that his life was over.

"You mean…" one of the reporters, a young woman no older than 25, stepped forward, and Lincoln braced himself, "You're the one that pulled the fire alarm?"

Lincoln's eyes snapped open as the reporters again closed in on him.

"So you're saying that you did _not_ see who did it?"

"It must have been terrifying for you, running through the halls with only the thought of getting your fellow schoolmates out of the building."

"Did you fear that at any moment, the flames would engulf you before you could pull the alarm?"

 **HONK! HONK!**

Vanzilla suddenly screeched to a halt as it pulled up alongside the reporters, Lynn Sr. behind the wheel.

"Get in!" He cried. Rita and Lincoln didn't need to be told twice; they rushed past the reporters and jumped into the family van, as Dad stepped on the pedal and zoomed away.

As Dad explained that he had also been texted by Lori about Leni's slip up and came to "rescue" them, Lincoln sat in a daze. He had not only almost confessed what he had done, but he had also CRIED on live TV.

No matter what people paid attention to or believed, he was sure that either way he was in for hell when he got back to school.

* * *

For Lincoln, the rest of the weekend felt like it dragged on, but at the same time felt like it was over far too quickly.

Each night Luna slept with him, making certain that her little brother was ok. All in all, Lincoln maybe got two hours of sleep in those four nights. He just couldn't make himself fall asleep.

During the day was a little better, but not much. Thursday evening, all the sisters watched over him, always making sure he was in their sites, for fear he would have an anxiety attack if he wasn't around loved ones.

During dinner, Lincoln found he could barely eat without feeling slightly nauseas. Luckily, his little sisters were too engaged in their nightly food fight to notice that he wasn't eating.

On Friday, Mom had to go back to work, so she made absolutely certain that Lincoln was ok to watch Lucy and the twins. Needing something to distract himself, Lincoln said he'd be fine. Mom, worried about him, honestly thought about putting all 4 of them in daycare with Lily, though Lincoln assured her that he would be fine to watch them. On her way out, Mom reminded the girls that Lincoln was in charge, though also asked them to keep an eye on him, just to be safe.

After Mom, Dad, and the rest of the sisters left, Lucy hugged Lincoln tightly, thanking him for helping her avoid the daycare; as the oldest there, Lucy had been "drafted" to help take care of the babies. While she loved Lily, occasionally helping with one baby was more than enough for her.

Deciding this could help him forget, Lincoln asked Lucy exactly what had happened, promising her she could watch her spooky shows all day if she did.

"…and then the little monster started whacking me with a stuffed rabbit. It felt worse than a hammer to the head," Lucy deadpanned, as Lincoln made lunch. He decided to go simple with peanut butter and jelly sandwiches, apples and juice boxes.

"Sorry to hear that," Lincoln chuckled, secretly sorry he missed it, "But hey, at least it was only for one day. Now, go tell Lola and Lana that lunch is ready."

Lucy nodded, and headed upstairs to tell her sisters that food was ready. As soon as she was upstairs, Lincoln whistled for Charles, the family dog. Once Charles was at Lincoln's feet, his master fed him the PB&J. Lincoln just knew he wouldn't be able to eat; the mere thought of eating made him nauseas.

Charles scarfed down the sandwich, right as Lucy and the twins entered the kitchen and sat at the table. Lincoln brought them their plates, licking his fingers and claiming he was so hungry, he had already eaten his sandwich. He then sat down and munched on his apple as his sisters ate their meals, casting glances at him as they did so.

That night, Lincoln found himself again unable to eat. However, Lisa seemed to notice he wasn't eating, so he asked her about her lecture. While she was explaining it, the rest of the siblings got in a food fight. Noticing Lucy, who was right next to him, was almost out of food, Lincoln waited until she was distracted and swapped plates with her. When Lisa was done talking, she noticed Lincoln's plate was empty. She thought nothing of it as she finished her own dinner.

The next day was a normal Saturday at the Loud house, with each sister doing her own thing. However, a slight difference this week had each sister make sure Lincoln was never alone, always doing something with at least one of them. It actually made him feel good, knowing his sisters cared so much to be there for him in his time of need. Sunday was the same thing, just normal weekend stuff, each sister making sure their bro was doing ok.

Both nights, Lincoln again found himself unable to eat, so he again waited for opportune moments to swap plates with Lucy, who was too absorbed in her poetry book to notice.

Before Lincoln knew it, it was time to go back to school, which he was NOT looking forward to.

* * *

"Alright, we're here. Everyone out," Lori said, as she pulled up next to RWES. Lincoln noticed several parents were hugging their kids extra tight before sending them inside.

"Linc, come on!"

Lincoln looked away from the window to see that Lucy and the twins were already out of the van, and all of the older sisters were shooting him worried looks.

"R…right" he muttered, grabbing his backpack and hopping out.

"You gonna be ok, little bro?" Luna asked worriedly.

"If you want," Lori spoke up, "I could drop everyone off and take you home. You look like you could use more sleep."

Wednesday night, Thursday night, Friday night, Saturday night, and Sunday night. Five nights in a row that Lincoln had gotten hardly any sleep. In all honesty, he was surprised he was feeling as fine as he was; he should have been barely standing, ready to fall over and pass out at any moment, and yet he actually felt good as new.

"I'll be fine," he assured them, "After all, I gotta face my problems head on. Heck, maybe after today I'll be able to stop fretting over the fire." He knew this wasn't true; he wouldn't stop worrying over it until he confessed, and even then getting over it seemed like a long shot.

He got out, bidding his older sisters goodbye as he did so. He watched Vanzilla pull out of site, waving at its retreating form as it did so. He then turned around, surprised to see that everyone, including his sisters, was already inside.

Lincoln walked up to the front doors, a nervous feeling growing in his gut as he did so. He slowly opened the doors, noticing everyone was facing towards the back of the cafeteria, by the doors that lead into the rest of the school. Mrs. Johnson was actually standing on a table with a microphone. She seemed to be looking out over the crowd, as though looking for someone in particular.

"LINCOLN LOUD!" she cried, upon spotting him by the front doors. Lincoln froze up as everyone turned around to look at him. They all stared at him as Mrs. Johnson waved him up. He slowly made his way through the crowd, eventually getting up on the table next to his teacher. The lights dimmed, save for the one right over them. Mrs. Johnson then snapped her fingers down to right in front of the table.

Looking down, Lincoln noticed his sisters, Clyde, and Cristina standing right in front of the table they were on. Cristina nodded and held up a hand-held camcorder to her face, "This is Cristina Savino with RWES News. Just last week, our school experienced a tragic fire that took half the building. Now, we go live with shocking updates about the aftermath of the fire." She then turned the camera towards Mrs. Johnson and Lincoln.

Lincoln was, of course, worried, as the RWES News was not only on every TV in the building, but was also live on the school's website, which he was sure tons of people were watching in case of any updates about the fire.

"Greetings, students and fellow teachers," Mrs. Johnson spoke up, looking out into the crowd, "As you know, this past Wednesday our school was almost burned to the ground by an arsonist, an arsonist who is likely in this very room as I speak." Lincoln noticed several students turning their heads and shifting their eyes to look at each other suspiciously.

"Well, I have some news that has not yet been made public about the fire, so here goes," Mrs. Johnson then held up a clipboard and started to read from it, "As many know, a couple students damaged the water pipes last Tuesday by flushing random items, including several pieces of paper, a chopped-up globe, and a mysterious substance from the science lab, down one of the boys' toilets. This happened at the end of the day, and was not discovered until Wednesday morning. As such, the entire water system was shut off during the time of the fire, meaning we had no sprinkler system."

Lincoln gulped, not liking where this was headed. Maybe he could jump off the table and run through the main doors and through the halls to the back of the school, which likely was a big opening. He could run home, get some basic supplies, and head out of the state, starting his life on the lam. He decided to get ready to run.

"However," Mrs. Johnson continued, "While the sprinkler's were a no-go, we still had the smoke detectors. This obviously would have alerted us to the fire and told someone to pull the alarm, right?" She looked around, as people nodded their heads and murmured yes. "Wrong! Because it turns out that the cafeteria lady, Leanne, was making another batch of corndogs when her drunk ex showed up to try and win her back. While she handled this, the corndogs in the oven overheated, and because we've needed a new oven for quite a while, it caused a small explosion. Nothing major, but it still caused enough smoke to set off the smoke detectors. Many of you probably heard it." The majority of the students had wide eyes as they remembered this and nodded their heads. "So," Mrs. Johnson continued, "Obviously, it would have probably been another minute before any of us noticed the fire and pulled the alarm, meaning by the time the firemen got here, it would have been too late to save the school."

Lincoln gulped as many people looked around, obviously unnerved by the fact that the building would have been gone right now, if not for certain circumstances.

"And then, there's the issue with the vent fans," Mrs. Johnson sighed, "It turns out, the main fans in the vent are in the teacher's lounge, the Gym, and…the science lab and the cafeteria." The students' eyes again went wide with shock, as did Lincoln's. "According to Firemen, right after Lincoln exited the building, less than a minute after the rest of us did, the cafeteria was briefly FILLED with smoke. This, of course, would have been very hazardous to everyone's health. The only reason this did not happen was because a certain someone pulled the fire alarm in time." Lincoln's eyes went wide, as Mrs. Johnson turned to him with a somber look in her eyes. Slowly, everyone turned to him, all looking at him in shock.

"So you know what that means," Mrs. Johnson said…as her face suddenly broke into a smile. Lincoln was confused by the happy, not sinister look on her face. Why was she smiling? She had clearly pieced together that he was the one that started the fire, right?

Suddenly, Lincoln was lifted up. Looking down, he saw it was Polly and Rusty that had lifted him up, setting him on their shoulders.

"3 CHEERS FOR THE HERO OF ROYAL WOODS ELEMENTARY!" Clyde cried out.

Lincoln's eyes went wide at that. People were calling him a HERO? What the-? Suddenly he paused and thought over everything Mrs. Johnson had just said, and it all made sense. Because of the fire in the kitchen, no one paid any attention to the smoke detectors. As such, everyone believed that by him pulling the fire alarm, he had gotten everyone out safely and saved the whole school from being burned to the ground.

"HIP-HIP HOORAY!"

"Please don't cheer," Lincoln moaned.

"HIP-HIP HOORAY!"

"I'm not a hero," Lincoln chocked out, trying not to cry, "I'm not even the kid who just did the right thing."

"HIP-HIP HOORAY!"

Lincoln looked around at all the cheering faces, all his friends and classmates who believed he was a hero. He felt sick to his stomach.

In fact, this time he felt ACTUALLY sick. As soon as his friends set him down, he rushed out of the cafeteria and into the bathroom, where he puked up what he had eaten for breakfast that morning.

"Ooooohhh…" he moaned, as he leaned against the toilet. If Lincoln thought he was in deep dog doo before, he may as well be swimming in an ocean of it now.

"How could this possibly get any worse?" he muttered.

At that moment, the door to the bathroom opened, and Lincoln heard something being slid across the floor. It slid to a stop right outside his stall door. Looking at it, he realized it was a walkie-talkie.

Lincoln just stared at the walkie, not sure what to make of it. After a moment, it buzzed to life with some static.

"Hello, Lincoln," a deep voice spoke up. Whoever it was sounded like they had a rag or something in front of their mouth, making it hard to figure out who it was.

Eyes going wide, Lincoln picked the walkie up and pressed the talk button, "Hello?"

"Well, well, well," the voice chuckled, "It sure is a pleasure to be talking to the "hero of the school". Pretty great thing you did. Pretty great, indeed."

"I…I'm not a hero," Lincoln muttered, still a little woozy.

"I know you're not, Mr. Arsonist," the voice stated emotionlessly, causing Lincoln's eyes to go wide in shock. "Listen up, and listen good! I have evidence that connects you to the fire. It would sure be a shame if this evidence got out. I mean, you'd be expelled and arrested, and everyone who loves you would turn against you."

Lincoln started hyperventilating at the thought of being (literally) kicked out of school, handcuffed in the back of a police car, and his sisters slamming the door in his face as they told him they didn't love him anymore. It took him a moment to regain his breath, "Please, don't tell anyone! I'll do anything!"

"I'm glad you're willing to negotiate, Mr. Loud," the voice chuckled, "Go ahead, enjoy the rest of your day, your 15 minutes of fame. I'll contact you tonight." At that, the other walkie switched off, and Lincoln was left in silence.

"This…is not gonna end well," Lincoln sighed in misery, as he shoved the walkie into his back pocket. He then got up, used some toilet paper to wipe his mouth, made sure his clothes were straight, and stepped out of the stall. He washed his hands and exited the bathroom, where he was met by more cheers from students who just so happened to be standing by. He hated it. He hated it all.

All it did was remind him that he was living a huge lie, a lie he was too cowardly to set straight.

* * *

 **Well, this is a surprising turn of events. Because of a bunch of random coincidences, everyone believes that Lincoln is a hero. As if he wasn't feeling guilty enough.**

 **But what's even worse is someone knows that Lincoln was the one who started the fire. We all know this isn't gonna end well for our favorite white-haired bro.**

 **R &R**


	3. 15 Minutes of Fame

**Enjoy.**

* * *

Lincoln numbly made his way to his classroom, while all the students kept cheering for him.

"I don't deserve any praise," he muttered. He felt disgusted with himself for not setting the record straight. He had started the fire, yet he was too cowardly to tell people that they needed to stop cheering for him.

Lincoln knew he would be in big trouble for starting the fire, and he was actually fine with that. What made him upset was the thought that he wouldn't be able to explain that he had not _purposely_ started the fire, and that his family wouldn't love him any more. That last thought alone was more than enough to make him keep his trap shut.

But it might not be entirely up to him to keep it a secret, seeing as someone apparently knew he had caused the fire. How? As far as he knew, no one should have even seen him, let alone have evidence of him doing it.

"Just another fact that the universe is apparently out to get me," he muttered to himself, as he entered his classroom.

Upon entering, Lincoln headed to his usual seat, only to be stopped by Clyde, "Hold on, Linc."

"What's up, Clyde?" Lincoln asked his friend, confused.

"We're just finishing up the calculations, bro," Clyde answered, as Liam and Zach walked around the room, looking at the windows and writing some things down. After a moment, the two of them headed to one desk right in the center of the room.

"Lincoln," Zach spoke up, "We've done the calculations, taking into consideration several factors, we've determined this is the best seat in the room. It is under the vent and to the left, so when it turns on you won't be blasted with super cold air, but you'll still get a nice chill. You're adequate distance from the front of the class to be able to hear the teacher, yet also tune out her out if you want. And lastly, the sun should not shine in your eyes at any time, because by the time it gets to your seat, school will be over."

Lincoln's eyes went wide as his friends gestured to the desk, waiting for him to take a seat. Supposedly the best seat in the room. He couldn't believe his friends had done this for him.

"Th…thanks, guys," he said gratefully, taking his seat. His friends nodded and sat around him, as Mrs. Johnson walked in.

"Welcome back, class," she said happily, "I know you're all still a little shocked from what happened last week, but we're two days behind, so we need to get right back on schedule. Thus, the first thing today will be the History test we were supposed to have on Friday. I hope you all used this long weekend to get some extra studying in."

The class groaned, but got ready for the test as Mrs. Johnson got the test papers out of her desk and got ready to pass them around.

Lincoln's eyes went wide upon hearing about the test. He hadn't done ANY studying this weekend. On Thursday he was still freaking out over what he had said on camera at the therapist's office, Friday he played with his little siblings all day, and Saturday and Sunday were spent running back and forth as his sisters hung out with him so he wouldn't be alone and have to think about the fire. So in short, he was so focused on not trying to think about the fire, that he distracted himself with whatever he could EXCEPT studying. He groaned, knowing he was gonna fail.

As Mrs. Johnson passed out the papers, Lincoln got his pencil out and decided that he may as well wing it. After all, if he put "C" for every answer, there was a…chance he could maybe get 50%, right?

Upon walking by Lincoln's desk, Mrs. Johnson placed the test paper on it, before placing another paper on top of it. This second paper was a small, torn-in-half notebook page. Curious, Lincoln turned it over…and his jaw dropped at seeing it was the answers to the test. Seriously, written on this paper was nothing but the answers:

 _1) a_

 _2) c_

 _3) a_

 _4) b_

etc…

Lincoln looked at Mrs. Johnson, but she was already back at her desk, grading papers. Looking back down at the answer sheet, Lincoln's brain tried to figure out what was going on. The only thing he could figure was that, as the "hero" of the school, he was being rewarded by not having to worry about failing.

This was just another thing to add to the pile of guilt Lincoln was dealing with.

* * *

At the end of the day, Lincoln exited the school, still being congratulated and thanked by various students. By now, he was starting to get numb to the feeling. He still felt guilty, but there was only so much guilt one person could feel.

Or so he thought.

"Lincoln!"

Lincoln looked up at who had called his name, and he raised an eyebrow upon seeing a heavy-set man in a nice suit, standing in front of a limo.

"Kirby?" he asked in shock, surprised to see the man who had been his temporary chauffeur when he won a limo for a day for eating his weight in fancy mustard. Originally, the two had started off on good terms, with Kirby glad that Lincoln wasn't like the usual snobs he had to drive around. However, living the high life briefly went to Lincoln's head, turning him into a huge jerk. Thankfully, he snapped out of it and apologized to Kirby, and the two had parted on good terms. They later became FaceBook friends, occasionally commenting on and/or liking each other's posts, but it had been a few weeks since they had actually seen each other in person.

"What are you doing here?" Lincoln couldn't help but ask, as he walked up to the limo, the same limo he had ridden in a few weeks back.

"I'm here to pick you up, of course," Kirby answered, as though it was nothing unusual.

"Um…what?" Lincoln asked, certain he had heard wrong.

"I'm here to pick you up," Kirby repeated, "I'll take ya home, or wherever you need to go."

"Ok…" Lincoln said slowly, certain something was wrong, "Why?"

"Well, you're a hero," Kirby shrugged, "And my boss said that heroes have to ride in style."

"Come again?" Lincoln asked, surprised, "How the heck did your boss find out that I'm a…a…" Lincoln found it hard to actually call himself the word, knowing fully well he was not one, "Ahero!" He finally blurted it out, and then slapped his hand over his mouth, as though he had said a bad word.

Kirby raised an eyebrow, confused about his young friend's outburst, before shrugging, "My boss's niece goes to school here, and he was checking out the website when your teacher made the announcement about your heroic actions."

"Your boss's niece?" Lincoln asked, confused. There were a few wealthier kids that went to RWES, but none he knew that were flat out rich. And he knew for the fact that to own a limo company, you had to be RICH.

Before Kirby could answer, a voice spoke up, "Hey, Kirby."

The two turned, and saw Cristina walking up.

"Hello, Miss Savino," Kirby greeted with a tip of the hat.

"Kirby," Cristina chuckled, "I told you, call me Cristina."

Lincoln's eyes went wide as he looked at Cristina, "No way!" She turned to him, and he continued staring at her in shock, "You uncle is Christopher Savino, the owner of the Royal Woods Royalty Limo Service?"

Cristina blushed, "Yeah, I don't really like talking about it. I want people to be my friends because they like me, not because my uncle is one of the richest men in town."

Getting over his shock, Lincoln thought this over, before shrugging, "Makes sense."

Cristina then turned back to Kirby, "So what are you doing here, Kirby? I told my uncle I don't want a limo picking me up from school."

"Actually," Kirby admitted, "I'm here for Lincoln. I'm now his personal chauffeur."

Lincoln's eyes again went wide as he asked, "Wait, what?!"

"Well," Kirby started, "As I said, Mr. Savino was watching the school website, and upon hearing of your heroic actions, recalled the contest you won a few weeks ago. So, he sent me to pick you up and tell me that this limo and myself are now yours."

"But…" Lincoln couldn't handle this. First his friends did everything they could to make sure he had the best seat wherever he went (classroom, music room, art room, lunchroom), then Mrs. Johnson actually gave him the answer key to the test (which he was ashamed to say he had looked at for a couple of the answers), and now he was being given his OWN LIMO?! He couldn't do this anymore, but he still couldn't find it in himself to confess, so he blurted out the first believable excuse that came to his mind, "But my family can't afford our own limo!"

Kirby shrugged, "Don't worry about it. My boss said he'll take care of everything: my paycheck, the limo's insurance and gas, even whenever it needs washed. He said he personally will bring your family the paperwork later this week. Basically, this puppy is now the Loud Limo."

Lincoln couldn't believe how fast this was spiraling out of control. All he did (as far as anyone knew) was pull the fire alarm. Yet people were acting as though he ran into the fire and carried every single student out of the burning building.

"Look, Kirby-"

"Whoa! The limo's back!" Lana, Lola, and Lucy ran up to their brother, looking at the limo with wide eyes (Lucy may have had wide eyes; it was hard to tell because her eyes weren't visible under her hair).

"What are you doing here, Kirby?" Lola asked, looking at the limo in awe.

"This is your limo now," Kirby explained, chuckling at the site of surprise in the girls' faces, "Well, technically it's Lincoln's, but I'm sure he'll share with you."

"He'd better," Lola said, walking to the door, which Kirby opened for her. Lana and Lucy followed suit. Lincoln, knowing he had to at least take the limo home, lest he incur the wrath of his younger sisters, started to get in, as well, only to stop when a hand grabbed his arm.

Turning around, he faced Cristina, who he had actually forgotten was standing there. "Lincoln," she sighed, "I…I want you to know that I forgive you for that video. And before you ask, you being a hero is only part of the reason I'm forgiving you. I just realize it would make me look like a b*tch if I still held that contempt for you. But I also realized that, well, we're in 5th Grade. We know next to nothing about these feelings we're starting to get involving romance, so it kinda makes sense that you did what you did. You had a crush on me, and you didn't know exactly what to do about it. Plus, since Ronnie Anne and I are starting to become good friends, I just feel it would be bad for me not to like her boyfriend. So, anyway…" Cristina blushed as she realized she had kind of been rambling.

Lincoln, who had stayed silent throughout the speech, looked at his former crush with wide eyes. Finally, after a moment of staring at her (and taking a moment to shut the door so his nosy sisters couldn't listen in), Lincoln finally found his voice, "Well…thank you, Cristina. Once again, I do apologize for making you uncomfortable. I just needed to embarrass myself to make it up to my sisters for embarrassing them, so I just put up all the videos my sister Luan had taken of me. I had no idea she had captured… _that_ moment." He rubbed the back of his neck nervously, and Cristina did the same. "Anyway…" He held out his hand, not looking her in the eyes, "Friends?"

Cristina smiled and shook his hand, "Friends."

"Well, I gotta get going. Guess I'll see ya tomorrow," Lincoln said, opening the limo door and hopping inside.

Cristina bid him goodbye, and started to make her way home.

In the limo, his sisters all smiled at him, and he sighed, "Not one word."

After so much stress and guilt, it felt good for Linc to have gotten that off of his chest. While he had apologized to Cristina a couple weeks earlier, it felt good that she had accepted it.

"At least that's one thing that's gone right lately," he sighed in relief, as he leaned back into his seat.

* * *

After much begging from his little sisters, Lincoln had Kirby stop at Gus' Games and Grub on the way home from school.

"Don't ruin your appetites," he called after them, as they hurried inside. Telling Kirby they'd only be a few minutes, Lincoln followed after his little sisters.

Lincoln sighed at seeing his favorite hangout. It felt good to be here, just a place to have random fun. Walking up to the counter, Lincoln found Lori wiping it down. However, upon noticing her little brother, she stopped and smiled at him.

"Lincoln!" She hopped over the counter and wrapped her brother in a hug, "How do ya feel, Mr. Hero?" She playfully tussled his hair.

Lincoln grimaced, "Please don't call me that, Lori. All I did was pull the fire alarm."

"But doing that still saved half the school and stopped all of us from having to go to the hospital for smoke inha…inhal…in our lungs," Lana said, as she and Lola walked up, each holding a roll of tickets.

"Do I wanna know how you both "won" all those tickets in less than 5 minutes?" Lincoln asked uneasily.

Lana carefully tucked her screwdriver into her pocket, "No…"

Lincoln and Lori both rolled their eyes as the twins placed their tickets on the counter. Lori released her brother as she took the tickets and handed each twin a prize they would like: An Easy-Bake Oven for Lola, and a Junior Tool Kit for Lana.

"Lana's right, bro," Lori said, as the twins ran off, "While you might not have done much, your simple act had a great effect. Without you pulling the fire alarm, the entire school would likely be gone and all the students would probably have had to go to the hospital because of the vents blowing all that smoke into the cafeteria. You're a hero, and we're all so proud of you for it."

Hearing this, of course, only made Lincoln feel more guilty than he already was.

"So, what's with the limo out front?" Lori asked.

Sighing, Lincoln explained how Cristina's uncle was the owner of the limo service, and upon finding out about his "heroic" actions, had sent Kirby to pick him up, telling him the limo was now his property, completely free.

"That's amazing, Linc!" Lori exclaimed happily, "Now that we've got our own limo, things should be easier for us. Since the limo can take us to school, Mom and Dad can take Vanzilla to work, so that means they can sleep in a little each morning since they won't have to walk."

"Yeah," Lincoln said, glad to hear SOMETHING good was coming out of this, "And hey, if you wanna borrow the limo for your dates with Bobby, you're more than welcome to."

"Aww, thanks," Lori leaned over the counter and wrapped her brother in another hug, "And I'm sure I'm not the only one who'll want to borrow it, so be ready for that."

"Hey, my limo is your guys' limo," Lincoln said. After all, he didn't even want the limo, as he knew he didn't deserve it, so at the very least his sisters could get some use out of it.

"Thanks, Lincoln. Do you think I could paint it black?"

Lincoln jumped up in shock at Lucy sneaking up behind him, AGAIN. She was holding a basket, which Lincoln noticed was one that usually held…

"Lucy, did you just have an order of GARLIC knots?" He asked suspiciously.

"…maybe," Lucy answered.

"I thought vampires HATED garlic," Lori said in a teasing voice.

"They do," Lucy responded, "And when I eventually become a vampire, I won't be able to have any, so I want to enjoy it while I can."

Lori and Lincoln just shook their heads and chuckled. At that moment, Gus walked up and handed Lincoln a pizza and a two-liter of soda.

"Um, I didn't order this," Lincoln said, trying to hand the meal back.

"It's on the house," Gus said, turning and heading back to the kitchen, "Heroes get one free meal."

Again, Lincoln shrank back at hearing the word "hero". It made him feel so dirty. Why couldn't he just admit the truth?

"Congrats, Mr. Hero," Lori said, playfully punching him on the shoulder. He looked up at her and saw her beaming at him. Once again, the thought of his sisters turning their backs on him was enough to keep him silent.

"Th…thanks," he muttered, "Well I, uh, I got homework to do, so I gotta get going. You want me to send Kirby back when your shift is over?"

"Thanks, but I drove Vanzilla here, so I gotta drive it home," Lori said, "You sure you can't hang out? I can give you the free tokens I get during my shift." She held up a little baggy that held a dozen tokens in it.

"Er…maybe tomorrow," Lincoln said. Even if Lori usually gave him her tokens, he just wasn't in the mood to be given anything at the moment. He had been given too many "rewards" today, and all of it was only adding to his guilt. "Away, I'll see ya at home in a couple hours."

At that, Lincoln called for his younger sisters and began ushering them out the door, waving goodbye to Lori as he did so.

* * *

Once outside, Kirby held the door open for the girls. Before getting in, Lincoln handed the pizza and soda to the chauffeur.

"To say thanks," Lincoln said, "For doing such a great job." The real reason Lincoln gave away his free food was because he was STILL nauseas at the thought of eating. He hadn't even been able to eat an apple at lunch, so he knew that pizza was not gonna stay down, should he attempt to eat it.

While Kirby placed the food in the passenger seat, Lincoln was about to get in, when a voice called out, "Just a moment, Loud."

Lincoln froze, recognizing that annoying voice anywhere. Turning, he saw his old "friend" Tetherby exiting his own limo. The fat, short, elderly rich gentleman was the reason Lincoln had let having a limo go to his head. Tetherby had his own Country Club, which he invited Lincoln to. The perks of being rich made Lincoln oblivious to how terrible Tetherby truly was until after he had acted like a huge jerk to his sisters. Thankfully he had made it up to them, and they had all gotten back at Tetherby.

"Hello, Tetherby," Lincoln said, trying to be polite. After all, he was sure the old man was well aware that he didn't like him, so no reason to act rude, "What can I do for you?"

"Well, Loud," the man said, "I was watching the school website when I saw your teacher reveal your heroic actions. First off, I want to say congratulations."

"Thank you," Lincoln nodded, "May I ask why you were watching the school website?"

"My nephew goes to your school," Tetherby explained, "Anyway, after hearing about your actions, I knew you were the perfect G-O-H for my Hero Party this year."

"G-O-H? Hero Party?" Lincoln questioned, confused.

"Guest of Honor," Tetherby explained, "Every Spring I throw a Hero Party to honor this country's heroes. Police, firefighters, doctors, all invited. I always make sure to have one Guest of Honor, one person who has exhibited above and beyond heroic actions. Like in 2009, I invited the pilot who saved that plane. This year, I want to invite you." He handed a gold letter to Lincoln, who nervously took it, "It's next Friday."

"Look, Tetherby, I appreciate the gesture, but-"

"I know I'm not your favorite person, Loud," Tetherby interrupted him, "I am well aware I am rather arrogant. I'm not inviting you because you have a limo, and the invite is not only for you. All of your family and friends can come. This is actually the one time of year I'm gener…gener…" He seemed to have trouble saying the word, but finally got it out, "Generous!"

Lincoln bit his lip; Tetherby actually seemed to be trying to be nice. But still, he was no hero, he didn't deserve this.

"I…I'll think about it," he finally said.

"Ok then," Tetherby said, heading for his limo, "Give me a call within the couple days or so, and when you decide, we'll make arrangements. We do have tables big enough for your whole family, so just let me know if you'll need one or two if you're bringing friends." At that, he got in his limo and it pulled away.

Sighing, Lincoln got into his own limo.

"What did Beachball-head want?" Lana asked, annoyed. After the limo incident, NONE of them liked Tetherby.

Lincoln explained about the party and that Tetherby had invited him as the Guest of Honor. He expected his sisters to be annoyed and tell him (maybe even threaten in Lola's case) not to go. However…

"Wow, that's great, Lincoln," Lola said, smiling at her older brother.

"Yeah," Lana spoke up, also smiling, "It's good when a person gets recognized for their heroic actions."

"It shows that people are willing to think of things other than themselves," Lucy deadpanned, "Especially if someone like Tetherby thinks so. You should totally go."

Lincoln again felt queasy. If his sisters were agreeing with Tetherby of all people, then he knew he was in big trouble.

He said nothing else as he stared out the window the rest of the ride home.

* * *

Upon arriving home, Lincoln headed straight up to his room to begin his homework. His parents weren't home yet, so he didn't have to explain the limo. Of course, he was more than certain they wouldn't have a problem with it.

Once inside, Lucy and the twins went off to do their own thing. As Lincoln was heading up the stairs, he heard the door open and Lynn call up, "Hey, bro."

Turning around, Lincoln forced a smile as he said, "Hey, Lynn, what's up?"

"Come outside, I got a surprise for you," Lynn said, as she headed back outside.

Lincoln groaned, dropping his backpack as he headed back down the stairs. He was actually praying that she was gonna douse him with water balloons or lock him out in his underwear (again), because he was in no mood to receive another "reward for his heroic actions".

As he exited the house, he was surprised to see Lynn, Rusty, Polly, Papa Wheelie, and Flat Tire, all standing around something under a tarp. Needless to say, he was starting to get an uneasy feeling.

"So, Linc, I think it goes without saying how proud we all are of your heroic actions," Lynn said, as the others nodded, "So, we thought it was only fitting you get a reward for it. Or, from what I've been hearing, ANOTHER reward for it."

Lincoln's stomach dropped as Lynn ripped the tarp off, revealing his bike, good as new.

A couple months ago, Lori had given Lincoln her old **pink** bike. Not wanting to look like a loser, he began "borrowing" Lynn's super cool BMX bike, which ultimately got him the position of "leader" in a bicycle gang. However, Lynn's bike was eventually stolen, so he had to come clean. She took his bike to a competition, and told him to find her bike. However, by the time he found Lynn's bike, Lynn had grown accustomed to his, and decided to keep it. Lincoln was kicked out of the bicycle gang, and Lynn took his place as leader. In guilt, he decided to give the bike to Lana, who promptly dismantled it.

But now here it was, good as new.

"I'm still the leader," Lynn said, "But we're happy to welcome ya back, Chain Linc."

"Yeah, glad to have ya back in the gang," Flat tire said, giving Lincoln a thumb's up.

"It'll be really cool to have a hero in our group," Papa Wheelie said, and the others nodded.

"Guys," Lincoln nervously chuckled, "Ya don't, uh, ya don't need to do this."

"You deserve it, bro," Lynn said, coming up to him and throwing an arm around his shoulder, "After all, you've had a rough weekend, so I figured you could use some good news. Now come on, let's cruise."

At that, his sister yanked him towards his bike, practically throwing him on it. She tossed him his helmet, and they set off. Groaning, Lincoln followed them, thinking maybe a ride would help him clear his head.

* * *

Lynn and Lincoln got home right around 6:00, just before dinner. They noticed the limo was gone, but didn't think much of it. After all, even with the garage door opened, it took up the entire driveway, meaning they obviously couldn't keep it at home.

Upon entering the front door, Lincoln took a sniff, and his mouth started watering at the smell of roast beef and mashed potatoes. It really sucked that while it smelled delicious, it also made him queasy. His guilt still made him feel too nauseas to eat anything.

'How the heck am I even functioning?' He thought to himself, as he made his way towards the kitchen, 'I haven't eaten or slept in DAYS. I should be, like, 5 seconds away from passing out. But instead I feel just like I always do. Maybe I should ask Lisa about that.'

As Lincoln got to the kitchen and was about to sit down at the kiddie table, his dad suddenly called to him, "Hey, Sport, ya mind coming in here for a minute?"

Sharing a confused look with his little sisters, Lincoln headed into the dining room. His parents and the older sisters were all seated around the grown-up table, with Mom getting ready to pass out dinner.

"Everything ok?" He asked, figuring his parents probably wanted to congratulate him on his new "hero" status.

"Sweetie, your father and I have been talking lately," Mom spoke up, "Mainly about a couple months ago when you tried to join the adults' table."

Lincoln grimaced at that rather unpleasant memory: all the stuff he tried to do to get to the adults' table, only to find out it was boring as HECK. Thankfully he managed to get back to the kids' table, though his parents' trust in him had been slightly damaged after that; even more so due to the fact that his older sisters had tried to come back to the kiddie table as well. They were allowed to stay for one night, but then were made to come back to the grown-up table.

Thankfully things were back to normal now. Lincoln had no plans of going to the adults' table any time soon.

"Well, we've been thinking…you can come to the adults' table," Dad said, smiling.

Not-so-fun fact: when you're a kid, what YOU plan to do doesn't really matter.

Lincoln grimaced, "Uh…that's ok, thanks, but I'm fine at the kiddie table." At that, he turned and started to head to the kitchen.

"Sweetie, we know why you did what you did," his mother said, causing him to pause.

"You…do?"

"Yeah," Mom sighed, as she and Dad both nodded, "Look, we get the grown-up table is boring, and our food isn't as good as what you have at the kiddie table, and even we agree that no dessert stinks. It's just…"

"We have 11 kids," Dad spoke up, "We just wanted a half-hour a day that we could have some peace and quiet. But we realize that wasn't fair to you kids. So, from now on, we'll be offering a more diverse menu. We'll all have the same thing every night, and your mom and I will eat our more…refined foods when you kids have pizza. And we'll all have dessert from now on. And heck, we may even allow a joke or two now and then."

As his sisters started cheering, Lincoln smiled meekly. While he was glad for the change, he knew this could be a problem; his younger sisters were always horsing around, and thus weren't aware that he hadn't been eating recently. He was sure at least one of his older sisters or parents would notice, meaning he would have to be careful.

Knowing there was no way out of this, Lincoln took his seat at the end of the table and waited for his mother to make him a plate. His sisters were all staring at him with admiration, with Luna and Leni, the sisters on either side of him, punching him on the shoulder and giving him a one-armed hug.

Throughout dinner, the conversation felt more relaxed than the last time Lincoln had been at the grown-up table. Most of the conversation was about him, of course, but he wasn't really paying attention. He knew Lucy or the twins would likely bring up the Hero Party at the Country Club, and he wasn't sure how that would go over with everyone. He figured it would probably be best just to get it out there himself, so he could put it behind him.

"So…" He spoke up, upon finding a pause in the conversation, "I, uh, I got invited to this Hero Party, and-"

"That's great, Sweetie," Mom said, beaming at her little boy.

"Way to go, Champ," Dad said, giving his son a thumb's up.

"Thanks," Lincoln said, forcing a smile, "It's at Lord Tetherby's Country Club, so I understand if you guys don't wanna go."

"Tetherby?" Lori asked, annoyed, "I thought you were done with him."

Lincoln explained how he had run into Tetherby out side of Gus' Games and Grub, and how he had explained that each year he had a party honoring heroes, and that it was the one time of year he tried to be generous.

"But still, I know you guys don't like him, so I'll call him up and tell him I can't make it," Lincoln said, shrugging like it was no big deal.

"What about the fact that you're the Guest of Honor?"

All of them yelped in surprise as Lucy appeared behind Lincoln.

Waiting for her family to calm down, Lucy explained, "While I agree that Tetherby is an arrogant jerk, you did say he seemed to be trying to be nice."

"Wait," Dad spoke up, as all the sisters turned to Lincoln in surprise, "You're the Guest of Honor at this party? Well, I think it's no question that you're going, and we're all coming along to support you."

All the sisters spoke up, saying things like "Totally" and "For sure" while also congratulating him.

"Gee, thanks, everyone," Lincoln said, forcing a smile, "But honestly, I don't think I deserve this. All I did was pull the fire alarm."

"Linc, what did we talk about?" Lori asked, smiling at her brother, "While you may have done something small, it had a great effect, and that's what makes a true hero."

The rest of the family all agreed, nodding and smiling at Lincoln, who only felt more guilty.

As the rest of the family got back into their own things, Lincoln looked down at his plate. He had so far only been able to eat a couple bites of his roast beef; while it tasted delicious, he still felt sick to his stomach. But he knew he had to do something before someone noticed that he wasn't eating.

Looking to his left, he saw Leni was actually almost done. Lincoln bit his lip. He had two choices. 1: he forced his food down, and then would more-than-likely throw it up later. Or 2: distract the rest of the family just long enough to swap plates with his ditzy sister, who likely wouldn't notice she suddenly had a full plate. Of course, there was the obvious fact that if he was going to be eating at the grown-up table full time, he needed to come up with a more permanent solution; for now, he'd go one day at a time.

"Excuse me, Leni?" he spoke up, drawing her attention. A couple of the others looked towards him, just out of natural curiosity of what he was gonna ask his sister, "Could you please pass the salt?"

Thankfully that made the others go back to their food, while Leni reached past Lori and grabbed the salt shaker. She then handed it to Lincoln, who poured it on the little bit of food he had left.

"Thanks, Leni," he said, as he set it back on the table.

"You're welcome, Linky," She said, smiling at him, before turning back to her own plate. To her surprise, it was suddenly full. "That's odd, I could have sworn I just finished eating."

"Wouldn't be the first time you forgot something," Lori chuckled, only to wince when her parents glared at her.

"Eh, whatever," Leni shrugged, as she went back to eating.

Lincoln sighed in relief as he swallowed the last couple of bites on Leni's plate. He just hoped he could find an easier solution for the future. After all, any of his sisters could have randomly glanced in his direction when he swapped plates with Leni.

"It's ok," He muttered, "I've survived life with 10 sisters. I can figure out a solution for all this stress I'm going through, no problem."

If only he actually believed that.

* * *

Dessert was ice cream sundaes. Lincoln again waited for an opportune moment to swap dishes with Leni. Thankfully, the girl again didn't question it, nor did anyone notice him switch. But he knew this lucky streak wouldn't last him too long.

Lincoln groaned at this thought as he made his way upstairs, grabbing his backpack that was where he had dropped it when Lynn dragged him outside. He then headed to his room to get started on his homework. However, as he was about to enter his room, he stopped and looked to his right. The door to Lisa and Lily's room was slightly open.

Lincoln bit his lip, before setting his backpack inside his room and stepping towards his youngest sisters' door and knocking on it.

"Come in," Lisa called. Lincoln stepped inside, noticing Lisa was writing some notes and Lily was playing with some toys in her crib. "What can I do for you, Lincoln?" Lisa asked, without even turning around.

"I was wondering if I could get your help on some…homework?" Lincoln nervously asked, hoping Lisa wouldn't pick up on the fact that he was lying.

"Well, I'm supposed to tutor Lucy with her math tonight," Lisa said, "However, that's not for another five minutes, so I guess I can lend a hand." She turned around, looking almost eager, "Is it something challenging?"

"Sort of," Lincoln said, nervously rubbing his hands as he tried to find the best way to say this so she could help him. Suddenly, the perfect lie came to him, "Since the fire was started by a student, Mrs. Johnson wants us to write an essay about guilt, and how it can mess with us."

"Interesting," Lisa said, "Well, off the top of my head, I know there are several key factors to guilt and the stress it can cause. Are you looking for any area in particular?"

"Well…" Lincoln took a deep breath, praying his genius sister wouldn't put 2 and 2 together, "What about…guilt-induced insomnia and queasiness?"

Lisa paused, placing her hand to her chin in thought, "Well, first, we have to look at guilt. Basically, if we have a conscience, then when we do something wrong we will feel bad about it. And of course, this will primarily start with things we enjoy. For instance, if the arsonist enjoys playing video games, then they would be unable to enjoy a good video game session without feeling horrible about what they did."

"Ok, makes sense," Lincoln nodded. To be honest, he hadn't really had any time to play video games this weekend, so he wasn't sure if he would be affected by them.

"As for insomnia and feeling nauseas," Lisa continued, "Those are equally plausible outcomes from guilt-induced stress. After all, sleep is considered a wonderful thing, due to being able to help us recharge. However, bad dreams tend to put us in a state of distress, thus making our sleep unpleasant, which, if continuous, can make us fear sleep. As for nausea, we again need to look at foods we like, which would make us unable to enjoy them due to feeling guilt. And this could set off a chain reaction. For instance, if you like pizza but hate broccoli, then eventually the guilt making you unable to stomach pizza would affect broccoli. It's not rocket science."

Lincoln frowned, think over everything his genius sister had said. Sadly, it all made perfect sense. He was having nightmares almost any time he fell asleep. And while the thought of pizza, burgers, spaghetti all made his mouth water, they also made his stomach churn. It was the guilt slowly messing with him, and he unfortunately knew the only way to get it to stop.

"How can guilt be overcome?" He asked, despite knowing there was no reason to.

And sure enough, Lisa told him the answer he had been expecting: "Confess."

Lincoln sighed, "Thanks, Lisa." He then turned and headed back to his room, wanting to get out of there before Lucy snuck up behind him and terrified him AGAIN. He entered his room and flopped down on his bed, staring up at the ceiling for a good 15 minutes before deciding he should get started on his homework.

He had told everyone that he would call Tetherby tomorrow after talking to Clyde and Ronnie Anne; he also told Lori and Leni they were more than welcome to invite their boyfriends. He honestly didn't want to go to this party, and was regretting bringing it up in the first place; back at Gus', he should have just told his sisters that Tetherby was trying to invite him back to the Country Club or something like that. Then, he could have just called Tetherby and told him he couldn't make it. But now, he pretty much had to go, go and be reminded that he was nothing but a fraud.

Sighing, he opened his Math book. For tonight, he had to do the problems on page 105, and some English homework identifying sentence fragments and run-on sentences. However, upon opening his book to the right page, he groaned upon seeing ANOTHER answer sheet. And sure enough, upon checking his English book, there was an answer sheet in there, as well.

He sighed, dropping his head down on his desk and groaning. He couldn't take much more of this; he was no hero, and he didn't deserve all these rewards.

"I honestly wish something bad would happen," He moaned, as he sat up and got his pencil case out, ready to do his homework. However, just like his test, he had no intention of using the answer sheets unless absolutely necessary.

"Hello, Lincoln."

Lincoln froze at the voice coming from out of nowhere. Gulping nervously, he reached down into his backpack and picked up the walkie-talkie his blackmailer had given him earlier. He then made sure his door was locked, before hopping on his bed and getting under the covers, trying to make sure no one would be able to hear his conversation.

Shaking, Lincoln pressed the talk button on the walkie and muttered, "Hello?"

"Good evening, Lincoln," the muffled voice chuckled sinisterly, "Let's skip the pleasantries and get right down to business. I have quite the list of things for you to do if you want me to keep quiet. Are you ready?"

Gulping, Lincoln miserably asked, "Do I have a choice?"

The mysterious person chuckled again, "Of course not. Now, let's begin…"

* * *

 **So, Lincoln has just had what many people would consider a great day. But due to his guilt, he was too stressed out to enjoy it. And now, the mysterious blackmailer is ready to start making poor Linc's life even worse than it already is.**

 **I really wanted to try and show the balance: on the one hand, everyone thinks Lincoln is a hero and is giving him massive amounts of praise. On the other, he knows he doesn't deserve it, so it's tearing him up inside. I think I did a decent job of that.**

 **The pilot Tetherby mentioned is Sully Sullenberger. I would recommend seeing the movie about him, it's good. And Lincoln getting the answers to the test is from Legends of Chamberlain Heights; not a great show, but also not the worst.**

 **Also, saw the holiday special tonight. Rumors are true, we see the Loud parents' faces for the first time.**

 **R &R**


	4. Ups and Downs of Life

**Hope everyone had a good holiday and has a Happy New Year.**

* * *

Lincoln couldn't believe he was doing this. It was so wrong in so many ways. But he had no choice.

He groaned as he continued running towards his destination. He just wanted to get this over with as quickly as possible.

Oh, it felt like he was just at home, safe in his room while his sisters hovered around, ready to help him out if need be.

Wait…he _was_ just at home, safe in his room with his sisters hovering around, ready to help him out if need be.

In fact, turning around, he could just make out the outline of his house at the end of the block. He sighed, knowing it would be a while before he could head back home and crawl in bed, if no other reason than to lay still all night so his body could rest.

At least he didn't have to worry about missing curfew, seeing as no one knew he was out.

* * *

 _10 minutes earlier…_

 _Having just received his instructions from his blackmailer, Lincoln warily crept down the stairs, hearing his sisters all chatting in the living room. He frowned when he heard exactly what they were saying._

 _"I'm thinking we talk to Tetherby, and during the part where he honors Lincoln, we all get up and tell some of our fond memories of him," Lori said._

 _"And then we can all say how proud we are of Linky," Leni squealed, at which the others all nodded._

 _Lincoln felt guilt in the pit of his stomach as he listened to his sisters as they shared memories of him and mentioned how proud they were of him._

 _Taking a deep breath, he descended the stairs and announced, "Hey, guys, I'm beat, so I'm gonna hit the hay."_

 _They all turned to him and smiled, all saying something along the lines of "Goodnight."_

 _Lincoln nodded, before heading back upstairs to his room. However, as he placed his hand on the door, he heard someone running up the stairs. Turning around, he saw Luna behind him._

 _"Hey, Luna, what's up?"_

 _"I just wanted to make sure you were ok," Luna said, approaching her brother and wrapping him in a hug._

 _Lincoln was NOT ok, but he forced a smile as he replied, "I am, thanks. I think I'll be fine tonight."_

 _Luna smiled, "Good. I'm always happy to help you out, little bro."_

 _"Thanks, Luna," he smiled, as they parted. As she bid him goodnight and headed back downstairs, Lincoln bit his lip._

 _'I should tell her,' he thought to himself, 'After all, she's my sister. They're ALL my sisters. If I explain it was an accident, they'd believe me, right? They could help me.'_

 _At this, Lincoln sighed as he entered his room, muttering to himself, "Help me what? Confess? And that's only if they don't turn their backs on me for being an arsonist."_

 _Lincoln sighed miserably as he locked his door and shoved some clothes under his sheets. He then opened his window and pulled the lever to release the inflatable slide to get down the side of the house. He then ran off, knowing he had to act fast._

* * *

Lincoln sighed again as he got to his destination: Flip's Food & Fuel.

His blackmailer had stated that his life would be a living hell. However, he also stated would be "nice" and start small.

So what did poor Lincoln have to do tonight? Simple. Throw a rock through Flip's window, without getting caught. The catch was that Lincoln also had to take a pic of himself in front of the broken window. Also, it had to be before the gas station closed, which it would be doing at 9:00, in 10 minutes.

"If this is the first thing I have to do, then maybe I should just keep running," he muttered to himself as he got in front of Flip's window, making sure he was out of the security camera's viewpoint.

Looking through the front window, Lincoln saw about 4 people, including Flip, inside. He really didn't want to do this, but he knew if he didn't, then his blackmailer would send the evidence of his "crime" to the police.

"Of course," he muttered to himself as he got his phone camera ready and picked up a rock, "If I do this, then I'm giving him MORE blackmail material." At that, Lincoln paused, and thought to himself, 'What if that's the catch? What if this guy just SAW me near the science lab and put two and two together, but doesn't actually have any proof? Then, by doing all this stuff, I would be GIVING him evidence against me. Sure, it wouldn't be evidence about the fire, but it would make me look like some hooligan. Heck, maybe his plan is to make it look like the stress of the fire got to me, and I'm slowly going nuts.'

Lincoln frowned as he dropped the rock. He had once talked to Lisa about taking chances (it was a few months ago when their father caught a case of "lottery fever" and kept buying tons of tickets). His genius sister had explained that in the grand scheme of things, chance was not actually random. In fact, if one were to play their cards right, they could easily guess at chance. She said some other things, too, but all of that was pretty hard for Lincoln to remember.

The main thing at the moment was that Lincoln had a choice to make: did he want to take a chance that his blackmailer might not actually have evidence of him starting the fire? Did he want to risk ruining his life, either way he decided?

* * *

Back at the Loud House, the girls were all getting ready for bed. As usual, they were all crowded in front of the bathroom sink.

Despite being huddled so close together, they were all doing their own thing. Leni was brushing her hair, Luan was flossing her teeth, Luna was applying her mud mask, etc.

As they were exiting the bathroom, Lincoln's bedroom door opened. They all paused when they noticed that their brother had a sad look on his face. Before they could say anything, he sighed and look at them.

"I just wanted to tell you guys again how much I love and appreciate you," He said, his voice sounding exhausted. He then pulled something out from behind his back, "Lana, could you destroy this walkie-talkie for me?"

"Um…" Lana was surprised by the seemingly out-of-nowhere request. She turned to her sisters, who also had looks of confusion on their faces. Turning back to her brother, she said, "I…uh…I guess so. I'll do it first thing in the morning."

"Thanks," Lincoln sighed, tossing the walkie to her, "Well, I'm done for the night. See ya guys in the morning." At that, he turned and headed back into his room.

The girls all looked at each other, unsure of what to make of what had just happened.

"Why'd he ask me to destroy this thing?" Lana asked, looking over the device in her hands, "He could've just thrown it away."

"Maybe he just assumed you'd have a couple minutes of fun dismantling it or smashing it," Lola shrugged, as she headed into her room.

Despite the slight weirdness of the situation, the rest of the girls shrugged and headed into their own rooms, not thinking too much about it.

Except Lucy. She frowned as she looked towards her brother's door. She knew something was wrong, and she had a feeling it had something to do with the fire.

* * *

It was 11:00 PM. Lucy sat up. She had been laying in bed for 2 hours, waiting for her family to fall asleep. Looking over, she saw Lynn was sound asleep, clutching her lucky football like a teddy bear.

Carefully, she tossed her blanket to the end of her bed, revealing the Ouija Board she had somehow managed to convince her parents to get her for Christmas.

Quietly setting everything up, taking occasional glances at Lynn to make sure she didn't wake her up, Lucy finally put her Gypsy Turban on and began muttering a chant.

"Oh spirits," she muttered, "I can tell my sibling, my dear brother, is hiding something, something bad that is eating him up inside. Please, for me to help him, tell me what it is."

For a moment, nothing. Lucy usually heard the spirits immediately after she called for them. Maybe she hadn't said it the right way? Had she been too demanding? When talking to spirits, the key was to be polite, but also show you weren't gonna back down.

"Luuucccyyyyyy…"

Lucy jumped at the voice. That sure didn't sound like any spirit she had contacted before.

"Y…yes," she muttered, trying not to sound afraid. Despite having been doing this for over two years, talking to new spirits still spooked her out from time to time.

"Lucy," The voice rasped, "Do not worry about dear Lincoln. He's cool. Just give him a day or two, and he will be fine. Understand?"

"Yes," Lucy nodded, despite it being the exact opposite of what she had been hoping to hear.

"Now," The voice continued, "Get 10 dollars out of your weird spider piggy bank thing and leave it on your awesome roommate's side of the nightstand."

Lucy raised an eyebrow (though still hidden under her hair) at the odd request. Sure, spirits had occasionally asked for small favors in return for their help, but they never involved money. Especially not…giving her sisters money…

Groaning, Lucy turned towards Lynn's bed, where Lynn was clearly awake, her eyes closed and biting her cheeks in an attempt to not burst out laughing.

"Lynn!" Lucy hissed, "I am being serious here. I honestly think something is bothering Lincoln, and I need the spirits to tell me what it is."

Sighing, Lynn opened her eyes and sat up, facing her roommate with an uninterested look on her face, "Or, you could just ask him what's wrong. Or even better, you could just realize that being hailed a hero is not gonna automatically undo the PTSD he's going through after the fire. Chances are he hasn't been sleeping well, and then all day he's been getting praised, so he's probably just outta whack trying to figure everything out."

"I don't know," Lucy replied uneasily, "I just feel there's something else that's bothering him."

"Well, if you're so sure about it, just ask him," Lynn shrugged, yawning, "Now, if you don't mind, I'm gonna try to get back to sleep." At that, her roommate closed her eyes and snuggled back down under the covers.

Lucy frowned as she set her Ouija Board under her bed, before getting back under the covers. She sighed out loud, "Lincoln, I wanna help you. Just tell me what's wrong. Tell SOMEONE what's wrong." At that, she closed her eyes and let herself drift off to sleep.

* * *

Lincoln was a smart boy. Not as smart as Lisa, but still pretty smart. As such, he figured that, even with the massive amount of stress and guilt he was going through, it would only be a matter of time before he started feeling the fatigue of his sleepless nights and empty stomach. As such, Lincoln decided to TRY to sleep; after thinking it over, he decided to just start small.

Because his mind was running a million miles an hour, filled with thoughts regarding the fire, his blackmailer, and his sisters, Lincoln decided to do something to take his mind off of things; he figured the best thing to do would be something he HATED to do: write. Any time Lincoln had to write, he would feel so bored, and thus sleepy.

Lincoln got his laptop, opened up a Word Document, and started to just write. Nothing serious, just trying to write coherent sentences until his mind was so worn out he would fall asleep. However, after a few minutes of this, he realized he needed direction so that his mind could fully focus. Just writing random crap allowed his mind to wander too easily. Then, it came to him.

 _"…so after that I learned to be more appreciative of the fact that I have 10 sisters."_

It worked. After a couple hours of writing about his recent adventures, including covering for his sisters on Spring Cleaning day, getting 4 dates to the Sadie Hawkins Dance, and his messed-up dream about having 10 brothers, he was finally ready to fall asleep. But first…

"Gotta use the bathroom," He muttered to himself, saving his word document and shutting off his laptop, before hopping out of bed and hurrying down the hall.

Upon exiting the bathroom, Lincoln took a deep breath. While his stress levels had gone down, he was still worried about having a nightmare, which would likely cause him to wake up screaming, waking up the whole house. He didn't want that, because he knew that his parents would more-than-likely send him back to the therapist.

"It'll be ok," He sighed, "Just start small. I'll take…a half-hour nap. Maybe then I'll write a little more. Yeah. As long as I keep it simple, I can do this."

He nodded, filled with new determination as he headed towards his room.

"Lynn!"

Lincoln paused in the middle of the hallway, right outside of Lynn and Lucy's bedroom. He was confused at hearing his little sister's quiet outburst. What were they doing up, and what were they arguing about?

He listened as Lucy continued, "I am being serious here. I honestly think something is bothering Lincoln, and I need the spirits to tell me what it is."

Lincoln's eyes went wide. Lucy knew he was still distressed? And she was trying to find out what was wrong? This could be a problem. While Lincoln had never fully believed in Lucy's spiritual practices, he did have to admit the possibility of ghosts being real wasn't too farfetched. But even so, he didn't need Lucy trying to get the spirits to find out what was wrong with him.

He listened further as Lynn told Lucy to chill, and that he was still just upset about the fire and probably hadn't been sleeping well. Lucy expressed her doubts, but Lynn responded that she should just ask him herself.

As the two finally settled down, Lincoln sighed, hoping they were done for now. However, right as he was about to head to his room, he heard Lucy mutter, "Lincoln, I wanna help you. Just tell me what's wrong. Tell SOMEONE what's wrong."

Lincoln froze, his emotions slowly starting to overwhelm him. He kept it together as he hurried into his room. Once inside, he closed the door and jumped on his bed, bringing his pillow to his mouth to cover his weeping.

He knew Lucy was right. He had to tell someone what was wrong. He couldn't eat or sleep, and there was now the constant threat that it would be discovered that he started the fire. It was driving him mad to keep it bottled up.

"But who can I tell?" Lincoln moaned, after he finally settled down. He flopped back onto his bed and stared up at the ceiling. Great, all his writing to settle his mind had gone to waste. There was no way he was getting to sleep any time soon.

Sighing, he got out of bed and grabbed his laptop, turning it on as he got back to writing. This time around, he decided to make a list of who he could possibly tell.

"OK, let's do this," he muttered, as he started by typing up all the names of his sisters and closest friends.

* * *

 _Lincoln was walking. Where was he going? Looking down, he saw he was on the sidewalk. Looking around, he saw he was headed towards…_

 _"School. Right," He muttered, as he got closer to his destination. Wait, why was he walking? Didn't he have his own limo now?_

 _"Whatever," He muttered, looking around for his friends. However, now that he paid more attention to his surroundings, he noticed that the neighborhood had a dark hue, and appeared to be totally quiet. Not even any birds chirping or dogs barking._

 _"Hello?" He called out, looking all around. It was odd. No people, no cars, no animals. Needless to say, Lincoln was getting a bad feeling about this._

 _Finally, he got to the school. Or what was left of it. The entire building was gone, nothing but a smoking pile of rubble._

 _"What the heck!?" Lincoln cried, looking around for any sign of a person who could tell him what happened._

 _At first he saw no one. But upon doing a full turn-around, he noticed a figure standing a few feet away from him. The figure was tall, and was wearing a brown trench coat and fedora, covering his whole body and concealing his identity._

 _"Sir?" Lincoln called out, "Do, uh, do you know what happened here?"_

 _The figure said nothing, but advanced towards the nervous boy. Lincoln took a step back, but the figure kept coming. Finally, the figure was right in front of Lincoln, peering down at him._

 _"What happened here?" The figure repeated, and Lincoln felt his blood stop as he recognized the voice of his blackmailer. "Well, you know what happened, Mr. Hero. You burned down the school, killing everyone inside."_

 _"No," Lincoln said taking a couple more steps back, "I…I didn't. I couldn't!"_

 _"But you did, Lincoln," The figure chuckled, advancing towards him, "You burned down your school, and now you're being treated like a hero. My goodness, how messed up is that?" At that, the figure let out a villainous chuckle._

 _Lincoln turned and ran, determined to get away. However, right when he reached the end of the block, he saw he was headed straight back to school. Skidding to a stop, he turned and ran the other way, only to again find himself heading back towards school and his blackmailer. For a good five minutes Lincoln tried this, repeatedly running away, only to end up right back where he started._

 _Finally, he couldn't run any more, and he collapsed to his knees. Despite being at the end of the sidewalk when he collapsed, upon looking up a few seconds later, Lincoln saw he was right in front of where the doors once stood, right next to his blackmailer._

 _"You can't run away from your guilt," The blackmailer said, chuckling while sounding serious at the same time, "No matter what you do, kowtow to me, confide in your sisters or friends, or even run away, you will ALWAYS have to face the guilt that you burned down your school, putting all of your classmates' lives in danger."_

 _"But…but it was an accident" Lincoln muttered, as he slowly started to sob._

 _"Do you really believe that?" The blackmailer asked, "After all, 10 sisters with their own personalities and futures figured out (even the baby) and yet you could never find your own thing. Maybe you started the fire because you wanted to be your own person. And that person is a hero. Or should I say a fraud."_

 _Lincoln didn't want to believe any of this, but what if it was true? His sisters, even Lily in a way, seemed to have their lives figured out. What was he good at? Reading comics in his underwear? Watching ghost shows?_

 _"Why are you doing this?" He finally asked, looking at his blackmailer through watery eyes, "What do you have to gain from ruining my life?"_

 _"I have everything to gain…Little Bro!" the blackmailer cried, removing "his" hat and coat to reveal none other than Luna._

 _Lincoln's eyes went wide as he fell backwards and tried to crawl away from the person who was supposed to be his closest sister._

 _"Why, Luna?" Lincoln cried, "WWHHHHHYYYYYYYY?"_

* * *

 **BEEP! BEEP! BEEP! BEEP!**

Lincoln shot up, looking around. Light was pouring in through his window, and he could hear his sisters starting to get up. Looking around, Lincoln saw that he had fallen asleep at his laptop.

The first part of his Word Doc was the list of people he could possibly tell his secret, along with several reasons why they could be trusted. But the second part of it was a couple pages of random letters and numbers that his face had been pushing down on while he was asleep.

Taking a guess, Lincoln figured his writing had slowly made his mind blurry, and he probably fell asleep after a few hours. The way he was feeling, he guessed he maybe got 4 hours of sleep.

"Better than nothing," He sighed, as he saved and closed the Word Doc, before turning his laptop off and getting ready to start the day, "Now if I could only eat something."

While in the shower, Lincoln thought about his nightmare. Truth be told he barely remembered any of it, just that Luna was apparently his blackmailer. But he knew that wasn't true. If he had to guess, he'd say that he felt so guilty about starting the fire, that this made him feel guilty about Luna comforting him these past few days. As such, his mind tried to put his older sister in a negative light.

"That's ridiculous," Lincoln muttered to himself, as he got out of the shower and got dressed, "Luna loves me, there's no reason to think any different."

After taking his shower, Lincoln headed downstairs and decided to try some toast for breakfast.

As he was waiting for the toast to pop up, his sisters slowly entered the kitchen, getting their own breakfast ready. Unlike the past few days, the girls were thankfully not hovering over their brother. He could see them casting glances at him, especially Luna and Lucy, but for the most part things were back to normal.

"Aside from the fact that I told my blackmailer off AND I'm being wrongfully honored at a Hero Party next week," Lincoln muttered to himself, as his toast popped up.

He sat down at the grown-ups table with his sisters and started slowly munching on his toast. As he munched, he was surprised at what he was feeling: he was slightly nauseas, but at the same time he felt good to be finally eating some food. Before he realized it, he had eaten both pieces of toast, and he still wanted more.

As he reentered the kitchen and got the bread out…

"Hey, Lincoln."

"AAAHHH!"

Lincoln jumped three feet in the air. Waiting for his heart to stop beating so fast, Lincoln turned around and saw Lucy. He also saw a couple of the sisters poking their heads into the kitchen in concern, though they calmed down upon seeing it was only Lucy that had spooked their bro.

"Hey, Luce," Lincoln said, smiling nervously at his little sister. He was sure she was going to try to talk to him about what was bothering him, and he just wasn't ready for that conversation yet, "What's up?"

"I just wanted to see how you are doing?" She stated, and he could tell that through her hair she was eyeing him up and down, looking for something wrong.

"I'm doing great," Lincoln lied, as he pulled his sister in for a hug, "Thanks for checking up on me."

"You're welcome," Lucy said, returning the hug, "I love you, Lincoln."

Lincoln felt his heartstrings tug; while they would all occasionally say "Love ya" in groups, it was rare for the Loud siblings to openly, somewhat randomly say "I love you" to each other.

"I love you, too, Lucy," He said after a moment, tightening the hug.

Lucy heard Lincoln pause and felt him tighten the hug, which only confirmed her suspicions that something was bothering her brother.

"AAAWWWWWW!"

Before Lucy could say anything further, the two were interrupted by their siblings spying on them, each of them, even Lynn and Lana, having sweet smiles on their faces as they watched their two siblings hug.

Lucy and Lincoln both blushed as they pulled away from each other. Even if they were family, public displays of affection were always grounds for teasing, which neither wanted.

"Um…" Lincoln coughed, "Well, we should probably finish breakfast right quick." At that, he grabbed his toast as it popped up and headed back into the dining room, as the older sisters tussled his hair and called him a sweet big brother.

Lucy sighed as she watched her brother head back into the dining room. She would have to try harder at getting him to open up to her.

"Maybe Luna could help," She muttered, as she followed after her siblings. After all, everyone in the family knew about Luna and Lincoln's close bond. Lucy only hoped her rock star sister could be of some help getting through to their brother.

* * *

The rest of the morning went ok, with just a little teasing from his sisters about how much he cared for them. Thankfully Lincoln's stomach felt mostly ok after four pieces of toast. He repeatedly took some deep breaths any time it felt like the toast wanted to come back up.

All in all, he actually did feel a little better now that he had actually gotten some sleep and been able to keep some food down. He only hoped he could continue this.

Again, when Lincoln arrived at school he got the celebrity treatment, with people cheering for him, high-fiving him, telling him he was awesome (with some girls flirting with him), etc. He still hated it, as he knew he didn't deserve it.

Throughout the first half of the day, things were pretty normal. Lincoln was actually dreading lunch, because he knew he had to invite Clyde and Ronnie Anne to Tetherby's Hero Party. Then after school he had to call Tetherby and confirm it, meaning he had to go and be reminded he was living a lie.

Shaking his head of these negative thoughts, Lincoln entered the cafeteria and looked for his friends. He spotted all of them sitting at his usual table.

Ronnie Anne, Clyde, Liam, Zach, Rusty, Papa, Flat, Cristina, Tabby, Haiku, Lucy, Lana, and Lola (Polly and Giggles were in middle school with his older sisters) just sitting around chatting and laughing. It was funny seeing them all, as they were technically in different cliques. But he just had that affect on people, apparently, giving them all courage to move out of their comfort zones and talk to different people.

Lincoln got his food, noodles with some type of sauce, and went to join his friends. They all smiled as he joined them, sitting in between Clyde and Ronnie Anne.

"Hey, Lame-O," Ronnie Anne said, smiling as she threw an arm around him and pulling him close. Lincoln blushed, not entirely used to his girlfriend acting very affectionate.

"Hey, Ronnie Anne," Lincoln said, smiling at her, "How are you?"

"I'm great," She said, as she tried her food, shuddering as she swallowed it, "You?"

"I'm Good," He said, before turning to the rest of the table, "How are all of you guys doing?"

They all answered along of the lines of "Good" and "Great", which made Lincoln smile, glad his friends were all doing good.

As they all chatted and choked down their stereotypical "cafeteria food", Lincoln's sisters smiled at him, looking at Clyde and Ronnie Anne with expectant faces.

Lincoln sighed, knowing their was no way to avoid this, so he cleared his throat, "Hey, Clyde, Ronnie Anne?"

His best friend and girlfriend, as well as the rest of the table, turned towards Lincoln, wondering what was up.

 _*PING*_

Before Lincoln could speak up, every single phone in the cafeteria pinged, signaling a massive group text had gone out. Everyone slowly took their phones out, except Lincoln, who was frozen in fear.

"No…" He muttered, looking around as everyone started looking at their phones with curious eyes.

"Hey, Lame-O," Ronnie Anne said, looking at the message, "This text is titled "LNCLN", and there's a video with it."

Lincoln opened his mouth to reply, but no words came out.

"Dude!" Clyde said surprised, looking at the message on his phone, "How could you not tell us about this?"

Lincoln looked all around as every head in the cafeteria slowly turned towards him.

Finally finding his voice, he muttered, "Oh boy" just as Ronnie Anne pressed "PLAY" on the video.

* * *

 **So, Lincoln told his blackmailer off, though doing so has only added to his stress. And that may have been a grave mistake, seeing as everyone in school apparently got the same mysterious text from someone.**


	5. One Step Closer

**Glad people are still enjoying this.**

* * *

Lincoln felt his throat close as the cafeteria grew quiet.

'Oh god!' He thought, as he started freaking out, 'That jerk really did have the evidence, and now he's released it. This is it. My life is over. I'll be expelled and arrested, and everyone will hate me. Probably even more since I've been called a hero and have done nothing to set the record straight.'

Lincoln felt time slow down as he watched Ronnie Anne's thumb move towards the "PLAY" button on the message she had just received.

Knowing he had to do something, Lincoln opened his mouth to try and explain himself. But of course, no words came out; he couldn't find his voice, so he resigned himself to just letting it happen.

It felt like an eternity after Ronnie Anne had hit "PLAY" before anything actually happened. Lincoln braced himself, getting ready for his life as he knew it to be over.

 _"HEY EVERYBODY!"_

Lincoln's eyes snapped open. That wasn't the voice of his blackmailer, that was…

 _"This is Leni Loud coming at you from Lunch period. Ooh, now my boyfriend will say hi."_

 _"Hughugh…er, *swallow* Hello, everybody," Came the voice of Leni's boyfriend, Sammy Linton, "I'm filming this while I try to eat lunch because my wonderful girlfriend asked me to. Apparently she's got some big announcement that even I don't know what it is."_

 _"That's right, Sweetie," Leni chuckled, "I just couldn't wait any longer. As many of you know, my little brother Lincoln is being called a hero after he saved everyone during the fire at his school last week. Well, what you may not know is that he's being HONORED for his heroic actions."_

At that, the cafeteria let out an "OOOOOHHHH!" as they all turned to Lincoln and flashed him a thumb's up.

 _"That's great, Babe," Sammy said, obviously excited, "What's the event?"_

 _"Um…" Leni paused as she tried to think of what it was._

 _"Leni, what are you doing?" Came Lori's voice, and the camera shifted over towards her as she, Luna, Luan, and Lynn walked up._

 _"Guys!" Leni said, happy to see her siblings, "What's the party Lincoln's getting honored at next week?"_

 _"Well, he's not so much getting honored, as he is being the Guest of Honor," Lori said, "It's the Tetherby Country Club Annual Hero Party."_

 _"That!" Leni said, excited, "That's what my little brother is getting for a reward for his heroic deeds."_

 _"Making a video to post bragging about Lincoln?" Lori asked, chuckling._

 _"Yup," Leni said, smiling, "Now, I just need to find a way to get all his classmates to see this video and know what's going on so they can congratulate him."_

 _"Leave it to me," Lynn said, "You can put the video as an attachment in a text message and send out a group text. I'll message Lisa to hack into the school's server and get all the kids' cell phone numbers."_

 _"Okeydoke," Leni said, nodding happily, "Anyway, I hope you all tell my sweet little bro congrats. He deserves it."_

At that, the video ended, and the cafeteria erupted in applause. Lincoln looked around at everyone cheering for him. He wasn't really sure how to feel right now. On the one hand, he was BEYOND relieved that the video wasn't his blackmailer turning him in. On the other, it was still hard for him to take praise for what happened.

All in all, Lincoln was currently feeling…numb. His heart was finally slowing down, no longer beating a million beats per second. Because of this, however, his adrenaline rush was finally wearing off, and he felt himself getting ready to fall asleep.

"I'll be right back," Lincoln muttered to his friends, finally finding his voice as he got up and made his way out of the cafeteria.

His friends and sisters watched him go, looks of confusion on their faces. They could tell something was off about Lincoln, but they had no idea what.

"Wonder what's up with Linc?" Rusty wondered.

"Probably just having a hard time being the center of attention," Lana suggested, "He doesn't really get a lot of time to shine at home. It's probably messing with him."

The others all murmured "Yeah" and "Probably" as they went back to eating their lunch. Except for one.

Lucy had been staring at Lincoln the entire time, and she had seen how freaked out he had been before the contents of the video were revealed.

"What's wrong, big brother?" She muttered to herself as she finished her lunch, half-paying attention to the chatter around her, "Why did you almost have a panic attack when everyone got that video?"

* * *

Lincoln stumbled out of the cafeteria and headed for the nearest restroom. He figured he go in one of the stalls and rest his eyes for a minute. He thought about going to the nurse, but then his parents would likely be called, and that would only lead to more worrying over him.

Right as he was about to push open the bathroom door, a voice called out, "Hey, Larry."

Lincoln groaned as he looked back and saw his classmate Chandler walking up to him. Chandler was the most popular kid in school, and he had the attitude to match. He used people, talked down to them, talked about them behind their backs, etc. Lincoln had once tried to get Chandler to like him to get invited to his birthday party, but doing so caused a slight rift in his relationship with Lori, due to him getting Lori in trouble at her job. The two made up, with Lincoln acknowledging that Chandler had never been his friend. Since then, Lincoln had made it his mission to avoid Chandler at all costs. (Clyde felt the same way.)

"It's Lincoln," Lincoln sighed, turning to face the other boy, while trying not to fall asleep, "What do you want, Chandler?"

"Well," Chandler said smugly, "I've heard about all the stuff you've been doing lately, Mr. Hero. After thinking it over, I figure you're cool enough to hang with me and my crew full time."

Lincoln rolled his eyes, having expected that from the biggest jerk in school. "Really? Gee, that's so "nice" of you, but I'm gonna have to pass."

Lincoln almost expected Chandler to get a look of surprise on his face, but instead his face turned into a scowl, "Look, Larry, I'm being nice by offering you a place with the cool kids. You already made me look bad by not showing up at my party after I invited you, so I'm not really in the mood to be told "no" by a loser like you AGAIN."

Lincoln was surprised (and kinda nervous) by Chandler's outburst. He took a deep breath and replied, "My answer's no, Chandler. You're just gonna have to deal with it."

At that, Lincoln turned and walked into the bathroom, not giving his rival a chance to say anything in response.

As Lincoln walked into the bathroom, he felt himself starting to wear out again, his confrontation with Chandler draining the last of his energy.

Noticing he was alone, Lincoln quickly opened all the stall doors, hoping to find a clean toilet (easier said than done in an elementary school boys' bathroom). He finally did, the one at the end actually looking like it was just cleaned. He hopped inside and locked the door, sitting on the toilet and leaning onto the wall, trying to get as comfy as he could.

"Just rest my eyes for a few minutes," Lincoln muttered, closing his eyes as he felt himself start to drift off.

* * *

 **RRRRRRRIIIIIIIIIINNNNNNNGGGGGGGGG!**

Lincoln's eyes shot open as he jerked up and looked around, wondering where he was and what was going on. In his haste, he felt his butt start to sink, so he quickly righted himself.

Finally getting his bearings, Lincoln realized he was in the boys' bathroom at school. The left side of his face felt weird, and looking to his left, he saw why: he had been sleeping with his face propped up against the wall, which had a steady stream of drool running down it.

"How…how long was I out?" Getting to his feet, which felt a little wobbly due to just waking up, Lincoln opened the stall door and walked out, noticing the bathroom was empty, just like when he had entered.

Pulling out his phone, Lincoln's eyes went wide upon seeing that it was 3:33. School had just ended. He had been asleep for over 3 hours.

"On the toilet," Lincoln muttered, grossed out by the thought. He had only meant to rest his eyes for a couple minutes, not actually fall asleep.

"Oh crud!" He gasped, realizing that Mrs. Johnson more-than-likely noticed he had been missing, and probably called the front office when she couldn't find him. And of course, the front office probably called home. He could only imagine how much trouble he was gonna be in.

* * *

The answer was none. Sort of.

Unknown to Lincoln at the moment, both Mom and Dad had to work a couple hours over. Because RWES's secretary is so old fashioned, she called the HOME number. And since the older sisters got home before Mom and Dad, it was Luna who discovered the message.

Upon hearing that Lincoln had cut class, Luna was understandably worried about her little bro. She had noticed that, even after being hailed a hero for his actions during the fire, he didn't really seem any better. While at first he seemed stressed beyond relief, he now seemed somewhat…empty.

Luna quickly erased the message from the answering machine before heading up to her room. She hopped up onto her bed and stared up at the ceiling, wondering what was up with her little bro.

Being completely honest, she hadn't told anyone, but…she had a feeling that Lincoln hadn't slept the past few nights. She wasn't sure why she thought that. Of course she had slept with him, but she had been asleep, so if he had been awake all night, then he must have been laying pretty still. For about 7 hours. For 5 nights straight.

"I need to talk to Lincoln when he gets home," Luna muttered to herself, "Something's clearly bugging him, and as his closest sibling I need to find out what it is."

* * *

Lincoln had waited until the halls were clear, before sneaking out of the bathroom and making his way to the front door. It was now 10 to 4, and he was sure his older sisters were probably already home. He could only imagine how mad and/or worried they were gonna be.

Upon exiting the school, Lincoln wasn't the least bit surprised to see not only his sisters, but also Ronnie Anne and Clyde waiting for him in front of the limo.

"There you are, Lincoln. Where have you been? We've been waiting for you for hours!" Lola complained, throwing her arms up in annoyance.

"It's only been 20 minutes," Lucy deadpanned, while Lana rolled her eyes at her twin's impatience.

"Sorry," Lincoln said, not looking at the group, "I…uh…had a couple things I needed to take care of."

"Like what?" Clyde asked, sharing a worried look with Ronnie Anne.

"Um…" Lincoln wasn't sure what to say. What could he tell them? While his sisters were oblivious, Ronnie Anne and Clyde obviously knew that he hadn't been in class for the second half of the day. "Just…stuff. Ya know." His friends and sisters didn't look convinced by his answer, so he quickly changed the subject, "Let's get out of here. I'm ready to head home and relax."

"Right," Ronnie Anne said, looking at her boyfriend with unease and concern. She had been worried when he apparently disappeared after lunch, and the fact that he was currently acting like nothing had happened only added to that worry.

"What's wrong with you, Lame-O?" She muttered as she hopped into the limo, Kirby closing the door after her, "Tell me what's bothering you so I can help."

* * *

After dropping Clyde and Ronnie Anne off at their homes, Kirby dropped the Loud siblings off at their house. After confirming none of them needed to go anywhere for the rest of the day, Lincoln sent Kirby home, thanking him as he did so.

Lincoln first stopped in the kitchen to get himself a glass of water. He thought about getting a snack, but his stomach was still queasy at the thought of food.

Upon getting up to his room, Lincoln realized he had left his backpack at school. Thus, he technically had no homework.

"Just another thing I'm gonna have to talk to Mrs. Johnson about tomorrow," Lincoln muttered, collapsing on his bed.

On the plus side, he had seen that someone had erased the message from the answering machine, meaning he didn't have to worry about Mom and Dad finding out about his "ditching". But that meant one of the older sisters HAD found out. He could only guess which one.

"Bro?" He heard knocking at his door, and Luna's voice from behind it.

"I'm guessing mystery solved," Lincoln sighed, getting up and opening the door, his brain trying to come up with some believable lie to tell his sister.

"Hey, Luna," He said, forcing a big smile on his face.

* * *

As Lincoln was telling Kirby he had the night off, Lucy hurried into the house and up the stairs, where she knocked on Luna and Luan's door.

"Yeah?" Luna asked, opening the door and poking her head out. She looked around, but saw no one.

"Down here."

Luna yelped and jumped in shock, though calmed down upon seeing it was only Lucy.

"Geez, Luce, don't do that!" Luna complained as she placed a hand over her chest while she tried to stop her erratic heartbeat.

Lucy ignored her older sister's usual shock at being startled by her as she said, "I need to talk to you about Lincoln."

Luna's eyes went wide as she looked side to side, before grabbing Lucy and pulling her into her room. She pulled the two of them up onto her bed, where they sat Indian-style across from each other.

"You've noticed it, too?" Was all she asked.

Lucy nodded, "Lincoln has clearly been dealing with some severe stress, and I believe that the fire is only PART of the reason behind it. I figure since you two are so close, you may have noticed something off with him?"

Luna bit her lip. While she and Lucy had never been particularly close with each other, they were both very close with Lincoln. Along with Leni, they were Lincoln's closest sisters, so if they suspected something was off with him, they would usually consult each other. And now was clearly the time to do so.

Sighing, Luna told Lucy her theory that Lincoln hadn't really slept since the day of the fire, and that he was probably running on adrenaline and stress. Lucy responded by revealing the amount of fear that had been on Lincoln's face when Leni sent that video, as though he had expected it to be something else; she also made note of Lincoln's hasty retreat from the cafeteria after the video was done, as well as when he had been the last to exit the school, clearly hiding something. Luna's eyes went wide at that part.

"He skipped the second half of the school day," Luna said, telling Lucy about the voicemail that had been on the answering machine when they got home.

Lucy's eyes went wide (still under her hair) as she muttered, "I knew Clyde and Ronnie Anne were hiding something the way they talked to Lincoln. They were obviously wondering where he had been."

"We need to figure out what's going on with our bro," Luna said, putting her fist to her chin as she tried to think of how to accomplish that task.

"Ya know," Lucy spoke up, "As I was going to Lisa's room for her to tutor me with my math last night, I saw Lincoln exiting her room, looking kinda sad. Do you think Lisa might know what's going on?"

"I doubt it," Luna said, frowning, "Lisa always tells us when she finds out something is bothering one of us. Like when Linc first started dealing with Ronnie Anne because she was picking on him. She doesn't believe in "wasting brain power on mediocre problems" or whatever. If Lincoln confided in her about something, she would tell us. And besides, why would he confide Lisa of all people? If not you, me, or Leni, I would figure he'd go to Lori, Lynn or even Lola before he'd go to Lisa."

"Couldn't hurt to ask," Lucy said, "Even if he didn't tell her what was up, maybe she's noticed something about him, too?"

"I guess," Luna said, as the two got off her bed and headed for the door, "How about I talk to Linc, while you talk to Lisa?"

"Sounds like a plan," Lucy said, as they got to the end of the hall, Lucy knocking on Lisa and Lily's door while Luna knocked on Lincoln's.

* * *

By the look on Luna's face, Lincoln knew he was right in his assumption that she was the one who had gotten the message from his principal. Without saying anything, he invited her in. They both sat on his bed, neither looking the other in the eye.

Lincoln was wondering how to get out of explaining why he had ditched class, while Luna was trying to figure the best way to talk to her little bro about what was bothering him.

"Bro…" "Luna…"

They both paused, before saying, "You go first."

"Er…let me," Luna said after another short pause. She took a deep breath, before beginning, "Bro, you and I have always had somewhat of a special bond. When we were little, before Lucy came around, you remember I was the one who had to look after you. I've always been a bit overprotective of you, but that's because I love you so much. If something's bothering you, and you don't wanna get the whole family involved, you know you can tell me and I'll keep it a secret. You know that, right?"

Lincoln, who was struggling to hold back tears, nodded.

"I'm not gonna tell anyone that you missed, apparently skipped, the second half of the school day," Luna said, putting her hand on Lincoln's shoulder to look him in the eyes, which was hard because she was starting to tear up as well, "But please, tell me why? That's all I ask. Tell me why you did it. Tell me…what's been messing with you this past week."

As Luna said that, Lincoln paused as he realized it was Tuesday. The fire had been on Wednesday. It hadn't even been a full week since his life fell apart. Whether or not his blackmailer had evidence against him, Lincoln had to acknowledge he was slowly falling to pieces. How long would he be able to hold up? How long would it be until he had a full mental break down? After all, he could barely eat or sleep, and he was feeling guilty as heck. In his family, he was surprised he had been able to keep this secret for so long. Usually the word "secret" was foreign in the Loud house, especially for him. Sooner or later, all the sisters, even ditzy Leni and baby Lily would realize he was losing it.

"I…I haven't been sleeping," Lincoln muttered, not looking his sister in her eyes, "So I went into the bathroom to rest my eyes for a few minutes, but I ended up falling asleep until the end of the day. I just can't sleep without having awful nightmares about the fire."

Luna's eyes went wide as she stared at her brother, not wanting to believe what she had just heard. After a minute of uncomfortable silence, she pulled him into a hug, rubbing his back as he finally let out the stream of tears that he had been holding in.

"Why didn't you tell me sooner?"

"I…I…" Lincoln sobbed, "I just…I just didn't want any of you to worry about me." This was, of course, only part of the truth; Lincoln was nervous that if his sisters were worried about him, then they would hover around him until he told them what was wrong. If he did that, then they would find out he started the fire, and then…He didn't want to think about that. Lincoln was sure his sisters would always love him, but the thought of them finding out he had done such a horrible thing (even by accident) made him wonder if that love could be shattered, and he just wasn't willing to risk finding out.

"Bro, we're family. We always worry about each other," Luna said, tightening her hug, "That's never gonna change."

"I know," Lincoln choked out, "I just can't get over…what happened."

Luna sighed, figuring she would tell Mom to give Sylvia another call. For now, however, she gently pushed Lincoln back and laid down with him, still holding him.

"We're gonna take a little nap," Luna said, as she started slightly rocking side to side, "Just until dinner. I want you to fall asleep and know you're safe. Don't worry about the fire, don't worry about any nightmares. Just relax."

Lincoln didn't want to do this, but he had to admit he was exhausted. After all, the average amount of sleep an 11-year-old boy needed was 8 hours a night. In 6 nights, that was 48 hours. In the last week, Lincoln had gotten MAYBE 10 hours total (including during the day). He needed this. Whether he wanted to admit it or not, he **needed** this.

Luna held her brother close as he slowly stopped sobbing. In a matter of minutes, Lincoln had calmed down and was lightly snoozing in his sister's arms.

* * *

While Luna was confronting Lincoln, Lucy was talking to Lisa, hoping her genius sister could help figure out what was wrong with their brother.

"…so now Luna's trying to talk to him about what's wrong," Lucy finished, as Lisa listened intently.

It was silent for a moment afterwards, as Lisa thought things over. Finally, she opened her mouth, "Last night, when he came in here to talk to me, he told me his teacher had assigned him an essay on guilt, due to the fire being started by a student. Of course, I knew he was lying, yet I went along with it."

"Ok…" Lucy said, not sure why her sister would do such a thing, and why she was just now telling someone about it, "How did you know he was lying?"

"Because I am able to read people," Lisa explained, "He had all the signs of lying: a slight eye twitch, scratching his neck, not looking me directly in the eye, and a defeated stance. Clearly, he is dealing with his own personal guilt, and was looking for a way to alleviate it. Since for whatever reason he feels he cannot confide in any of us, he tried to trick me into giving him an answer. However, even though I played along, I had to give him the only possible answer: confess to whatever is bothering him. Sure enough, once I told him that, it looked like the life had been drained from his eyes, confirming my suspicions that he is personally dealing with massive amounts of guilt."

"What could he be feeling guilty about?" Lucy asked curiously, "He hasn't done anything wrong."

"That we know of," Lisa pointed out, "After all, we don't all know where everyone else is or what we are doing 24 hours a day. Lincoln could have done something bad without us knowing."

"But we spend almost all of our time together," Lucy argued, "We would notice if something was bugging Lincoln. The word "secret" doesn't exist in this house."

"Guilt and stress can make a person paranoid enough to do things they never thought they could do," Lisa stated, "In Lincoln's case, he was able to keep his cool well enough that we didn't suspect a thing, other than him being upset over the initial fire. And when he revealed he ran through the fire, we simply brushed everything odd he was doing aside, assuming it was purely stress. But of course, I've been keeping an eye on him, and sure enough I can tell you that our male sibling is showing extreme signs of guilt, despite his best efforts to conceal it. As to what exactly he is feeling guilty about, one can logically assume it involves the fire."

"But why would Lincoln feel guilty about the fire?" Lucy asked, now more confused than when she had entered the room, "He's a hero because of it. Even if he thinks he didn't do much, he shouldn't feel GUILTY because of it. Modest, maybe? But not guilty."

"Well," Lisa started, a look of unease beginning to show on her face, "There is…one thing that could be making Lincoln feel guilty. Though I hesitate to even consider this possibility."

Lucy sighed, "Lisa, we are a family. We need to be there for each other. If Lincoln feels he can't talk to us, then it's up to us to figure out what's wrong so we can help. Whatever theory you have, crazy or not, we need to consider all possibilities."

"Ok then," Lisa sighed, "Everyone believes the fire was started by a student, right?" Lucy nodded. "Well, what if our brother…knows who the culprit is?"

Lucy eyes went wide, and this time they actually peered out from under her hair. "Are you…are you serious? Lincoln is a good kid. If he knew who started the fire, he would tell someone. Heck, I know it's "not cool" as they say, but for something this big I'm sure Lincoln would have no qualms about "tattling" on the scumbag responsible."

"But what if he has a reason not to?" Lisa argued, "What if whoever did it KNOWS Lincoln knows, and is threatening him? Or even worse, what if it's someone he cares about?"

"You mean like Clyde or Ronnie Anne?" Lucy asked skeptically, "They may have their faults, but I'm fairly certain neither one of them is an arsonist. As for the person threatening him, he knows he could come to us and we'll take care of it."

"Maybe not," Lisa argued back, "What if the person were to have a weapon and threatened, say, us? Lincoln would do anything to keep us safe."

Lucy frowned, not wanting to consider that possibility, mainly because it was very logical. After all, Royal Woods wasn't exactly New York. Pretty much everyone knew everyone else. Or at the very least, everyone knew the Loud family. Everybody especially knew 2 things about them. 1: They lived up to their name. And 2: They all loved each other more than anything, and would always have each other's backs. And in the whole family's opinion, Lincoln was the one who cared about them the most, even if they frequently drove him up the wall. So Lincoln knowing who started the fire, and the arsonist threatening his family if he snitched was actually a very real, very frightening possibility.

"What do we do?" Lucy finally asked, a look of worry starting to show on her face.

"The only thing we _can_ do," Lisa sighed, "We need to confront him. However, the way to do that will be tricky. We need to show him that we are not going to back down, yet we also need to make sure he knows we are there for him and that he is in a safe place."

"That shouldn't be too hard," Lucy muttered, "We just need to make sure he's feeling ok when we do it."

"And that may take some time," Lisa pointed out, "After all, if Lincoln hasn't been sleeping, then he must have been running on pure adrenaline, which would make him not think too straight. Like I said, he would only be able to think about making sure we don't find out something is wrong with him. Other than that, his mind and emotions are probably a wreck."

"Which means if he's confronted over anything, especially the idea of someone threatening us, he could have a nervous breakdown," Lucy sighed in defeat.

"Precisely," Lisa nodded, "As such, we simply need to hope Luna, whom I have mathematically calculated to be the sister Lincoln is closest to, can calm him down and put him in a relaxed state. This will make confronting him easier."

"I hope so," Lucy said, frowning, "I hate seeing him like this."

"As do I," Lisa admitted, "I am aware that I have never been too good with emotions, but I do love all of you and want only the best for each of you. And it truly does bother me when any of you are in distress."

"I feel the same way," Lucy nodded, "I may prefer to keep my positive emotions bottled up, but that doesn't mean I like feeling negative all the time, especially when my family is involved."

"You know something, Lucy?" Lisa asked, looking at her older sister with a sort of admiration, "You and I…we're not all that different sometimes." Lucy opened her mouth to reply, only for Lisa to continue, "I mean, I am much more intelligent than you, and I do not believe in spirits or monsters for even a minute. But other than that, we are fairly similar." Lucy frowned at this, not all that surprised that her genius sister had ruined the moment.

"Right," Lucy sighed, "Well, I'm gonna see how Luna's doing. Just a sec." At that, Lucy stepped out into the hall and pressed her ear against Lincoln's door. She heard nothing, so she lightly pushed it open.

Upon peeking in her brother's room, she noticed him and Luna on his bed, her arms wrapped around him, like a mother and a newborn, just lying on the bed, both their eyes closed. Straining her neck, Lucy got a look at Lincoln's face and noticed that he looked…better. Not exactly good, but just a little better than he had earlier in the day.

Lucy carefully closed the door before poking her head back in Lisa's room to tell her that their older siblings were taking a nap. Lisa nodded in understanding, and Lucy said she would be in her room.

As Lucy left, Lisa sat back down at her desk and sighed. Lisa Loud was NOT someone who was good with emotion. Sure, she loved her family and all, but usually she was stoic and kept to herself and her studies.

So it was understandably shocking that she would WANT someone to be threatening their lives. After all, that was a lot better than…what she really suspected…

* * *

 _Last Wednesday…_

 _Lisa's parents had picked her up early from her class. Though she was unhappy with this, her opinion changed upon finding out about the fire at RWES. Though she didn't show it, she was very worried for her older siblings._

 _Thankfully when they got there, the fire fighters had already put the fire out, though half the school was gone. But by some miracle, no one had been hurt. Her parents were two of many that arrived and scooped their children up in hugs, praising the lord that they were safe and unharmed._

 _Lisa got out of the van and followed her parents to her siblings. Dad was currently hugging Lana and Lola, and Mom was hugging Lincoln and Lucy. While Lucy and the twins were hugging their parents back, Lincoln appeared to be just…standing there, barely acknowledging his mother's arms wrapped around him and the kisses she was repeatedly administering to his forehead._

 _Lisa took quick note of this. Lincoln had always been a bit of a "momma's boy", so to say, so the fact that, even though they were in public, he was not recuperating his mother's affection was rather odd._

 _Clyde walked up to the family, on his cell phone with his dads, who were sadly unable to get away from work to come pick up their son (downside of owning their own bed n breakfast: rude guests who were not understanding of a potential crisis)._

" _I'm fine, Dad, don't worry. I wasn't anywhere near the fire. Yes, I understand that you both think it would be a good idea for me to see a doctor, just in case."_

 _Lisa smiled a small smile. She didn't like seeing her brother upset, but knew that he wasn't usually one to talk about what was bothering him, so hopefully Clyde would have some answers._

 _Of course, upon hearing Clyde's fathers were unable to get away from work, Mr. and Mrs. Loud were more than happy to offer him a ride home._

 _During the ride, Lynn Sr. drove, Rita sat in the second row with the twins, Lucy and Lincoln sat in the third row, and Lisa and Clyde sat in the back._

 _While Mom was consoling the children, who were a bit shaken up by the fire, Lisa leaned over to Clyde, who was busy looking out the window, and asked, "Excuse me, Clyde?"_

 _Clyde turned to her and responded, "What's up, Lisa?"_

" _I was wondering, have you noticed anything off about Lincoln today?"_

 _Clyde paused as he placed his hand to his chin in thought, "Not really. I mean, other than being a little shaken up by the fire, he's been fine all day."_

" _You haven't noticed anything?" Lisa pressed, "He appears to be truly upset. Please, Clyde, even the smallest thing you may have noticed would be of some help."_

 _Clyde frowned as he thought some more, "No, nothing comes to mind. I guess he's just taking the fire a little worse than the rest. After all, he was the last one to exit the building."_

 _At that, Clyde shrugged and resumed looking out the window. However, Lisa was racking her brain over what he had said. Lincoln was the last person to exit the building? Very odd…_

* * *

Then, of course, there were the other little hints Lisa had picked up over the next few days: Lincoln had run through the flames, due to having run an errand for his teacher that resulted in him being right where the fire had started, and he was the one who pulled the fire alarm.

Lincoln also clearly wasn't eating. He had used the kiddie table's nightly food fights, as well as asking about her lectures, to cover it up. He did this by switching plates with Lucy, which he thought none of them had noticed.

'Lincoln is a good kid. There's no way he…did it,' Lisa thought to herself, a frown on her face.

'But let's not forget some of the stupid stuff he's done, especially in the last year,' Another voice inside her head argued, 'Like what about the trophy case incident?

'But that was only because he was feeling inadequate compared to us,' Voice one countered, 'And he more than made up for it by humiliating himself to apologize.'

'The green house project,' Voice two stated.

'We were as much to blame,' Voice one said, 'Even if he screwed up in the end, we made it worse. Heck, he showed me a much better way to power my lab, and yet I went back to electricity PURELY to spite him.'

'The dress incident. Even if he didn't mean to screw up, he still acted cocky and like he could fix everything.'

'Fair point, but we can't all…what's that thing Lynn says? Hit home runs all the time. He screwed up, and then for a few days after that he kept his head down and his mouth shut. After that, we were all over it.'

'Look, I get you care for him, but you have to face the facts that maybe our brother isn't who we think he is!'

'But he's feeling guilty! That has to count for something!'

Lisa groaned. Only when she was truly facing a conundrum did she argue with herself over the possibilities. And it always made her head hurt.

Sighing, Lisa took off her glasses and wiped them with her handkerchief as she thought things over in her head.

Lisa wasn't very religious, nor did she like being wrong. Yet at that moment, she was ready to get down on her knees and pray to the lord, saying she would give up her smarts if she was wrong just this once.

But it didn't work that way. Despite her reluctance and unwillingness to think so, Lisa sadly had one solid theory: Lincoln was the one who started the fire!

* * *

 **So, the video was NOT from Lincoln's blackmailer, but from his sisters to show how proud they are of him. But sadly, the thought that it was his blackmailer took its toll on poor Linc, who is slowly slipping downward.**

 **And now Luna, Lucy, and Lisa are on the case as to what exactly is bothering their brother. And unfortunately, it looks like Lisa just may have figured it out.**

 **Also, at the beginning when Leni mentions her boyfriend, that's to show that this story takes place in the same universe as one of my previous stories, Used and Abused: A Friend in Need.**

 **R &R**


	6. Two Steps Back

**Sorry for the delay. Actually wanted to get this up a lot sooner, but had a slight case of writer's block. Anyway, glad people liked the last chapter. Hoping you'll like this one even more.**

* * *

 _The Loud siblings were sitting in the living room, watching TV, reading magazines and comics, and playing with toys._

"… _and then Carol slipped and bumped her head on the bleachers," Lori finished her story, chuckling while she did so, "The nurse said she'll likely have a bump on her head for a week."_

 _The kids all chuckled at that, knowing how much Lori disliked Carol Pingrey and was probably ecstatic that she had gotten hurt._

 _At that, the kids returned to their individual activities._

 _Lincoln and Luna were currently looking through a music book together. Lincoln was paying attention as Luna told him what songs she was gonna play at her next few gigs._

" _That one always gets the crowd riled up," Luna said, pointing at one song, "And this one is good for ending the night cuz it's pretty mellow."_

" _These are quite the selection of songs, sis," Lincoln said, impressed, "It's cool you can play them all together without getting mixed up or anything."_

" _Years of practice, bro," Luna said, tussling her brother's hair, "I'll admit I can occasionally have trouble remembering what chord to start or how high or low I need to sing, but for the most part I'm an expert."_

" _I'm proud of you, Luna," Lincoln said, smiling at her, "You're a great rocker and an even greater sister."_

" _Thanks, Linc," Luna said, pulling her bro in for a hug and placing her head on top of his, "I wish I could say the same about you."_

" _Well, I think I'm an ok sister, but I'd say I'm better at being a brother," Lincoln joked._

" _No, you're not," Luna said emotionlessly, still holding Lincoln in a one-armed hug._

" _Um…" Lincoln was surprised by the coldness in his sister's voice, "I mean, I've made some mistakes, but we all have. It's best to put that in the past and move on."_

" _True," Luna said, still not moving from her position. At that moment, Lincoln noticed his other sisters sounded far away, despite being in the same room as him._

" _Is…is there something on your mind, Luna?" Lincoln asked nervously, as he tried to pull out of his sister's hug, only to find that despite not seeming to be putting any strength into her hug, Lincoln could not get away._

" _I was just wondering if you like taking advantage of my love for you?" Luna asked, tightening her grip on her hug._

" _What?" Lincoln asked in shock, certain he had heard wrong._

" _I came to you in your time of need," Luna said darkly, "And you let me love you and help you, even though you know you don't deserve it."_

" _Wh…what do you mean?" Lincoln asked, as he struggled to get away. He now noticed that the rest of the room was blurry, save for the section of the couch they were sitting on. Despite this, he could see that his other sisters were glaring at him. Their eyes were visible, despite the rest of them being nothing more than blurry blobs._

" _You know damn well what I mean!" Luna snapped, "You aren't upset because of running through the fire. You aren't feeling modest about your heroic actions. You're feeling guilty because YOU STARTED THE FIRE!"_

" _No! I mean, it was an accident!" Lincoln cried, as the blobs of his sisters started to close in around him, groaning and glaring at him as they did so._

" _Lincoln, you suck!" Lana cried._

" _Lincoln, you're a monster!" Lori snapped._

" _Lincoln, you aren't part of this family anymore!" Lynn yelled._

" _No!" Lincoln cried, struggling to escape his sister's now crushing grip as they all hurled insults at him._

" _Lincoln, go to hell!"_

" _I swear it was an accident!"_

" _LINCOLN!"_

" _Please don't stop loving me!"_

" _LINCOLN!_

" _Please forgive me!"_

" _LINCOLN!_

" _I NEED YOU GUYS!"_

" _LINCOLN!"_

" _LINCOLN!"_

* * *

"LINCOLN!"

"I LOVE YOU GUYS TOO MUCH!" Lincoln jolted awake. Looking around, he saw he was in his bed, in Luna's arms. Turning, he saw his sister's worried face frowning at him in concern.

"Bro!" Luna tightened her hug, "It's alright! It was just a nightmare, you're safe. You're safe. The fire's over."

As Lincoln returned the hug with force, he realized tears were starting to fall from his eyes. He wiped them as he tightened his hold on his sister, afraid to let her go.

Luna noticed Lincoln tightening his hold on her, and her worry only increased.

"What was your nightmare about?" She asked, lightly rubbing his head as she rocked back and forth, trying to soothe her upset bro, "Why did you yell that you love us too much?"

"I…I…" Lincoln wasn't sure what to say. After all, why would a nightmare about the fire result in Lincoln shouting to his family his love for them?

"Were we there this time?" Luna asked, noticing the pause in Lincoln's voice, "Did you almost lose us in the fire?"

"You…you could say that," Lincoln choked out. It was sorta true after all; while he had not lost them IN the fire, he had lost them BECAUSE of the fire. Same thing, more or less.

"Hey, we aren't going anywhere," Luna said, kissing Lincoln's forehead, "We're right here, safe and sound, ready to help you whenever you need us."

Before Lincoln could respond to that, there was a knock at his door.

"Yeah?" Luna called.

The door opened, revealing a concerned-looking Lori, "Everything ok in here? I heard screaming."

"Yeah," Luna said, nodding, "Linc and I were just laying down, and he had a bad dream." However, she made sure Lori could see in her eyes the secret message, _'We need to talk.'_

Thankfully Lori picked it up and said, "Ok, just wanted to make sure. Hey, Luna, can you help me with some music homework?"

"Sure," Luna nodded, getting up as she tried to let go of Lincoln. However, he held onto her, not wanting her to leave him. "Bro, I'll be just down the hall if you need me. You should take a minute to relax and put yourself together." As she said this, Luna forcefully, yet gently, got Lincoln to let go of her.

"Right," Lincoln said, nodding as he wiped his eyes again. Luna kissed Lincoln's forehead again, before heading out with Lori.

As soon as his sisters were gone, Lincoln flopped back down on his bed, grabbed a pillow and screamed into it. This was getting to be too much. He was clearly losing it. His new nightmare proved just that.

"First I dreamt about killing my friends at school, then about setting my house on fire, followed by Luna being my blackmailer, and now my worst fear: my sisters turning against me," Lincoln moaned to himself, "Who knows how bad the next nightmare will be?"

Lincoln had once wished to have 10 brothers instead of 10 sisters. Other than that, he hardly EVER thought of life without them. He needed his sisters in his life. They were what made him, well, him! Their hobbies made them who they were, and that bled over into him.

Luan's awful jokes, Lynn's rough-housing, Leni's ditzy, yet sweet nature, Lola forcing him to join her tea parties, Lana dirtiness, Lucy's macabre lifestyle, Lori's bossiness, Lisa's experiments blowing up, Lily's adorableness, and especially Luna's music; all of that had helped mold Lincoln into the young man he had become, and without that, Lincoln Loud wouldn't exist.

Of course there were times his sisters drove him up the wall and he wished that they would leave him alone. But there were also times he screwed up big and they wanted him to leave them alone. That's what a family was: occasional annoyance, anger, and frustration, but also unlimited love.

And the mere thought of losing that love was what was driving Lincoln up the wall.

* * *

Lori had Luna come to her and Leni's room. Leni was sitting at her desk working on her homework. As usual, there was a confused look on her face as she looked over the sheets.

Lori told her to come sit with them as she sat on her bed. Leni sat next to her, and Luna sat across them on Leni's bed as she began her tale.

Lori and Leni's eyes were wide as dinner plates by the time Luna was done explaining what had been going on with Lincoln. They had both suspected he was still upset over the fire, but neither of them have imagined it was this bad.

"Oh my gosh," Lori muttered, "I can't believe Linc has been so…so…out of it. What can we do?"

"I'm gonna call Sylvia tomorrow and get Lincoln another appointment with her," Luna said, flopping down on Leni's bed, staring at her older sisters in distress as she did so, "Lincoln is clearly losing it, and I hate that there's not much I can do."

"We can be there for Linky," Leni suggested, "That should cheer him up."

"But that can only do so much," Luna sighed, "When I went to talk to him, it was obvious he was hurting to have to tell me what's been bothering him."

"But Linky knows we'll be there for him," Leni whined, "Why would he be upset to have us help him?"

"Stress can do a lot of damage to a person," Lori sighed, placing an arm around her younger sister and pulling her close, "Including making them feel they're alone in the world."

"We need to show him that he's not alone, and that just like any other problem he can come to us with this," Luna said.

"Exactly," Lori nodded, "We're his family, we're here for him."

Luna nodded, still upset. She sighed, "Guys, don't tell him I told you this. I came to you because you're the oldest besides Mom and Dad, and I know he doesn't want them to know about this. But I did promise him I wouldn't say anything, so…"

"Don't worry, my lips are sealed," Lori nodded, understanding, "Just…make sure he knows I'm here for him, too."

"Same here," Leni nodded, upset at the thought of her little brother in so much distress, "I'll always be here for Linky."

"Me, too."

The three oldest Louds jumped in shock as Lucy appeared at the foot of Leni's bed.

"For crying out loud!" Lori exclaimed, clutching her chest as her heart started beating at an accelerated rate, "How are we not used to that yet?"

"Surprise is a constant thing," Lucy sighed, "Chances are in 10 years I'll still be able to get the drop on you guys without even trying."

"Of course you will," Luna muttered, shaking her head as she asked, "What did Lisa say?"

Lucy's constant dull expression turned into one of unease as she sighed, "It wasn't a good conversation."

"Ya got nothing?" Luna asked in disappointment.

"I didn't say that," Lucy replied, "Lisa and I went over quite a bit and came up with quite a few theories. Just…none of them were good."

Luna and Lori shared a look while Leni bit her lip. Staring down, not looking at her sisters, Lucy relayed her and Lisa's conversation to the older girls. By the time she was done, all three of them had dinner-plate wide eyes and jaws practically dropped to the floor.

"That…that's impossible," Lori finally found her voice, "There's no way Lincoln knows who started the fire. His friends wouldn't do anything like that, and he wouldn't let some stupid threats stop him from telling the truth!"

"I agree with his friends not being the culprits," Lucy said, "But we don't know whether or not the arsonist may have threatened him or us if he squeals. It's entirely plausible."

"Why would someone do something so mean?" Leni asked.

"Remember, Leni," Lori sighed, "Whoever this person may be, he or she did burn down the school. Whoever could do something like that would clearly have no problem threatening any witnesses."

The four girls frowned at that.

"Ok," Luna sighed, "We can't just demand Linc tell us, otherwise he may flip out. We gotta make sure he's comfortable when we go to him with these theories, especially if they're true."

The others nodded, and they began talking about when they could maybe confront their brother. After a few minutes of debating, they agreed Luna would be the one to talk to him, and she would do it after his next therapy session.

* * *

Unfortunately, Sylvia had had a recent spike in business, and was unavailable until Saturday. As such, Luna made it her personal mission to be there for her brother as much as possible so he would have someone to comfort him.

Lincoln was at an awkward place. Of course he was grateful for his closest sister being there for him, but at the same time he was worried that her constant presence would cause him to let something else slip. Something he couldn't take back.

Luna sat next to him at dinner, keeping a watchful eye over him as they both ate. Knowing he still couldn't eat, Lincoln had to take a chance and ask Luna to pass him the salt while pouring his food onto Leni's plate. Thankfully Luna's eyes were on _him_ instead of his plate, and Leni of course wasn't paying attention.

Again, Luna slept with him. She didn't even say she was gonna, she just came into his room and laid down with him, and Lincoln knew there was no getting out of it. He laid still as she wrapped her arms around him. He closed his eyes and tried to regulate his breathing so Luna would believe he had fallen asleep. Thankfully she seemed to buy it.

The next day, Lincoln pulled Clyde and Ronnie Anne aside and told them about the Hero Party and that they and their families were invited. They accepted, and called their parents to make sure everything would be set.

Thankfully Lincoln came up with a decent excuse to tell Mrs. Johnson about why he missed the second half of the previous day. She believed him, and gave him an "A" on the assignments and homework he had missed. Of course, Lincoln tried to tell her this wasn't necessary (or right), but she said that as a hero, he deserved only the best. This only fueled Lincoln's guilt, but luckily (or unluckily, however you look at it), he had other things on his mind.

Upon getting home, Lincoln called Tetherby and told him he accepted the party invitation. Tetherby was delighted, and gave Lincoln his email address, saying to message him with exactly how many guests he would be bringing by Sunday. He also told Lincoln to write a small speech; nothing fancy, just to tell how he was feeling being a hero, and maybe something inspirational to tell people who looked up to him.

Upon hanging up the phone, Lincoln sighed miserably; he now had no choice but to go to this party and be reminded he was nothing more than a fraud.

Shortly before dinner, a man arrived at the house. Lincoln instantly recognized the man as Christopher Savino, owner of the town's limo company. Christopher stated he was there to take care of the Loud Limo, having brought a contract for them to sign. After having Lisa read over the contract to prove it was valid and there were no tricks, Christopher signed it. He then stated that Lincoln and both his parents needed to sign it, as the limo was Lincoln's, yet he was still a minor. After the contract was signed, Christopher used his portable copier to make a copy, which he handed to Mr. Loud. He then congratulated Lincoln on his heroism, before leaving.

After that, the rest of the night was the same as the evening before, with Luna watching over Lincoln, piling his food onto Leni's plate, and lying awake in Luna's arms all night, too terrified to sleep.

Thursday and Friday were pretty much the same. Thankfully at school, things had started to go back to normal. Lincoln still had some people cheer and congratulate him, but it had toned down from the start of the week. Ronnie Anne and Clyde confirmed that their families were in for the party. Thus, when he got home from school on Friday, Lincoln made a list of all his guests for the party.

Himself, Mom, Dad, Lori, Leni, Luna, Luan, Lynn, Lucy, Lola, Lana, Lisa, Lily, Clyde, Mr. & Mr. McBride, Bobby, Ronnie Anne, Mr. and Mrs. Santiago, Sammy, and Ms. Linton. Not counting himself, that was 21 people. Well, Tetherby did say that they had tables big enough, and that Lincoln could have two if he needed them.

He emailed Tetherby and let him know the number of guests he would be bringing. He thought about inviting more of his friends, like Cristina and the bike gang, or maybe ask Clyde if he wanted to bring Haiku, but he thought that would be a bit much. Plus, he didn't wanna play favorites. Of course he had invited Clyde and Ronnie Anne, due to them being his closest friends, but his other friends didn't "measure" anywhere, with him liking them all equally.

Tetherby responded a little later, telling him that 21 people was fine, and that he could have two tables for them. He also mentioned that as the Guest of Honor, Lincoln got to choose one of the main courses; he mentioned that lobster and fried chicken were already on the menu. After thinking it over for a minute, Lincoln asked for pizza, pointing out that he probably wasn't the only one bringing younger kids. Tetherby said that was fine, as he knew a great pizza place, and that was that.

Lincoln flopped down on his bed and sighed. He had noticed that Leni and Lori had joined Luna in watching over him these past few days, nd Lucy had started popping up more and more, asking to spend quality time with him. This could be a problem. Not so much Leni, but definitely Lori. Despite not usually getting involved in her siblings' affairs, when she did, the oldest Loud sibling was always on top of things. Surely she would notice something was off about him (assuming she didn't already). And of course with Lucy being like a ninja/vampire at times, he would have to be careful even when (he thought) he was alone.

Luna had told him the two of them were gonna spend some quality time tomorrow. Lincoln sighed as he thought about spending time with his closest sister. While the idea seemed nice, he just couldn't shake the uneasy feeling he was getting. Was she on to him? Was she trying to get him alone so she could interrogate him? And even if she wasn't, she would likely pick up on the fact that he was feeling incredibly uneasy.

After all, Lincoln was now going on 9 days of next-to-no sleep and very little to eat. And his adrenaline was slowly wearing off. Who knew how long it would be before he just fainted and had to go to the hospital? And on top of his already growing pile of stress, there was also the ever-constant worry about his blackmailer.

Sighing again, Lincoln stared up at his ceiling as he thought back to Monday night…

* * *

 _Lincoln slowly climbed the inflatable slide to his room. At the moment, he was feeling a mixture of determination and dread. He crawled through the window and retracted the inflatable slide._

 _Lincoln then walked to the door and placed his ear against it. He heard his sisters walking, getting quieter as they did so, meaning they were likely heading towards the bathroom._

 _Taking a deep breath, Lincoln pressed the talk button on his walkie-talkie and said, "Hey, blackmailer guy!"_

 _He waited a moment, before he heard, "Is it done? I have a burner phone that you can send the picture to."_

" _Actually…" Lincoln paused, taking another deep breath. He knew he was getting ready to take a big chance here. "I just wanted to tell you…you can go to hell! I'm not doing anything you tell me to, and I'm not gonna give you actual evidence to use against me."_

 _There was a pause, before the voice spoke up, "Actual evidence?"_

" _That's right," Lincoln said, trying to keep from freaking out, "I don't think you have any proof that I supposedly started the fire."_

" _Supposedly, huh?" The voice chuckled, "So you're not even confessing to me? I'm not recording this conversation, nor have I recorded either of our previous conversations. Do you know why? Because the video I have of you starting the fire is more than enough leverage over you."_

" _I don't believe you," Lincoln said, trying his hardest to sound confident, "You just saw me by the science lab, and you figured I may have started the fire, so you figured I would be a good patsy you could manipulate. Well, I got news for ya, pal: it ain't gonna happen!"_

 _At that Lincoln took the batteries out of the walkie and tossed them in the trash. He was about to do the same with the walkie, before he paused, figuring it would be even better to just destroy it. And he knew the perfect 6-year-old to do just that._

 _Lincoln then checked his eyes to make sure he hadn't been crying during his telling off his blackmailer. After making sure he looked ok, he unlocked his door and stepped out, right as his sisters were exiting the bathroom._

* * *

Lincoln sighed miserably. He knew that even without the threat of his blackmailer, his life was slowly falling to pieces. And what was even worse was that he couldn't even go to his sisters with this. Of course, there was no reason he couldn't, but he was just too afraid that they would give up on him if they found out the truth. He just couldn't handle that.

"Hopefully some quality time with Luna tomorrow will ease my mind," Lincoln muttered to himself, as Mom called them all down for dinner.

* * *

The next day after breakfast, Lincoln exited the house and sat on the front steps, waiting for Luna to finish getting ready. As he sat, he watched his sisters in the front yard.

Lynn was playing basketball, Lana was playing the mud, Lucy was sitting under the shade of the tree and writing, Lola was driving around in her princess car, and Lori was leaning by Vanzilla texting Bobby. He also noticed Luan walking off, likely towards a gig; she had insisted he take time off as her assistant to work on his Hero speech.

Lincoln sighed as he thought of the Hero Party yet again. It wasn't right, and he knew that. But he was just too afraid to set the record straight. In all truth, Lincoln wouldn't hesitate to call himself a coward.

"Ready to go, bro?" Luna exited the house, "I got a fun day for us planned."

"You know it," Lincoln said, shakily standing up. As could be expected, Lincoln was really starting to feel the effects of his stress; he had chugged down an energy drink after breakfast, hoping it would help him stay awake.

"Good to hear," Luna nodded, "So, I've got a…specific errand I need to run. After that, I figure we can grab lunch and just spend the day at Gus' Games and Grub."

"Sounds like a plan," Lincoln smiled, as the two headed down the walk and made their way towards town, "So, what's the "specific errand" you need to take care of."

Luna suddenly looked nervous as she bit her lip and looked away from her brother, "It's a, uh…I'll tell ya when we get there."

"Ok…" Lincoln said, a little weirded out by his sister's somewhat evasive response. He was sure whatever it was, it wasn't anything to big.

* * *

"What the heck, Luna!" Lincoln yelled at his sister, as they stood in front of Sylvia's office.

"Look, bro," Luna began in a calm voice, "You told me you haven't been sleeping, and I've noticed you acting kinda jumpy and paranoid these past few days, so I just figured it would be a good idea for you to talk to Sylvia again." She smiled nervously, hoping her brother wouldn't just storm off.

"But I don't WANT to talk to Sylvia again!" Lincoln argued, "I've got too much on my mind for her to deal with."

"Bro, she's a trained professional," Luna stated, "Especially when it comes to having "too much on your mind". She can help you get through all of this." Lincoln turned away, ready to head back home. Luna stopped him by placing a hand on his shoulder and asking, "Please, Bro? For me?"

Lincoln closed his eyes tight, not wanting to see his sister's pleading face. After a moment, he cracked open his eye to see Luna looking at him with what one would call "puppy dog eyes", complete with a quivering lip.

"Fine," He finally sighed, "I'll talk to her for half-an-hour, not a second longer."

Luna smiled and pulled her bro in for a hug, "Thanks, Linc. I promise you won't regret this."

"I hope not," Lincoln muttered, as the two entered the building.

* * *

Lincoln sighed as he sat on the couch again, Sylvia in her chair, ready to take notes.

"So, Lincoln," She began sweetly, "Luna tells me you haven't been sleeping since the day of the fire. You wanna talk about that?"

"Sure," Lincoln said, not really caring. After all, unless he wanted to reveal that he started the fire, then he couldn't really talk to her in a way that could help him.

Pen and paper in hand, Sylvia began. "So, let's start the night after the fire…"

" **WELL, 'SIGH' I JUST HAVEN'T BEEN ABLE TO SLEEP WITHOUT HAVING A TERRIBLE NIGHTMARE INVOLVING THE FIRE."**

After the therapy session, Lincoln and Luna headed to Gus' Games and Grub, where they spent the rest of the day just hanging out. Because it was just the two of them, Lincoln knew he had to eat. He choked his pizza down; while it felt so good to have some food in his system, he still felt incredibly nauseous, his guilt making him wanna barf up the delicious delicacy.

" **ANYTIME I COME CLOSE TO FALLING ASLEEP, MY FEAR KICKS INTO OVERDRIVE, AND I JUST SEE THE WORST POSSIBLE OUTCOME FOR THAT DAY."**

After another sleepless night on Saturday, Lincoln told his sisters he was gonna hang with Clyde for the day. Though they were worried about having him out of their sites, Lincoln assured him he was feeling better and would be fine. This was a lie, but he was sure they wouldn't pick up on it.

" **I'M ALSO FEELING GUILTY…FOR NOT DOING MORE! I JUST FEEL I SHOULD HAVE TRIED HARDER…TAKING A DIFFERENT ROUTE."**

Clyde was glad that the two of them could hang out together again, due to Lincoln being rather busy since being labeled a "hero". Lincoln laughed that off and suggested the two just forget about what had been happening recently. They decided to hang out at the park.

" **I'M WORRIED THAT MY LACK OF SLEEP WILL…START AFFECTING MY MIND IN WEIRD WAYS, CUZ I KNOW THAT NOT SLEEPING IS VERY UNHEALTHY."**

While they were hanging out, just chilling and catching up, an elderly lady stopped by to congratulate Lincoln on his hero status. Lincoln, rather embarrassed, thanked her, but said he just did what anyone else would do. After she left, Lincoln noticed Clyde giving him a weird look; he asked who Lincoln had just been talking to. When Lincoln turned to point out the old lady, she was gone, which made no sense seeing as they were in an open area and the lady had been using a walker. This only made Lincoln more nervous than he already was.

" **MY SISTER LISA, SHE'S THE GENIUS I TOLD YOU ABOUT, SHE SAYS THAT AFTER ONLY THREE OR FOUR DAYS OF NO SLEEP, A PERSON STARTS TO HALLUCINATE. BUT I'VE BEEN FINE SO FAR."**

That night was the same, piling his food on Leni's plate and lying awake in Luna's arms. Lincoln did fall asleep at one point, but it only lasted for a few minutes before he was startled awake by Luna; this time it was her who had a nightmare. She dreamt that he had been killed in the fire, unable to reach the fire alarm and get to safety. She cried as she hugged her brother, who let a few tears fall as well.

" **I'VE NOTICED MY SISTERS HAVE BEEN HOVERING OVER ME LATELY, OBVIOUSLY CONCERNED ABOUT ME. I APPRECIATE THAT, I REALLY DO. BUT IT'S JUST A BIT…ANNOYING?"**

The next day was back to school. Luna almost didn't want to let him go, keeping ahold of him the whole car ride to school. Though he honestly didn't want to, Lincoln got out of her lap, pecked her on the cheek, and got out of Vanzilla, heading into the school. The first part of the day went ok, but then at lunch, he was surprised to see Luna enter the cafeteria, dressed like Elvis, no less.

"Luna!" He exclaimed in shock, "What are you doing here? And why are you dressed like that?"

His sisters and friends looked where he was staring, but looked confused.

"Lincoln, who are you talking to?" Lana asked, concern in her voice.

" **I KNOW THAT I SHOULDN'T BE STRESSING OUT OVER WHAT HAPPENED, BUT I JUST CAN'T HELP IT. AND WITH THAT STRESS COMES INSOMNIA."**

Lincoln realized he was starting to hallucinate. It happened several times over the course of the day. For the most part, it was just seeing his sisters in getups that were not all that unusual: Luan as a clown, Lynn using stilts to appear as a 6-foot-tall basketball player, Lola as Elsa from _Frozen_ , Lana drenched in mud as a mud monster, Lisa dressed as Albert Einstein, Lucy flying above the classroom as a vampire, and at the end of the day when he went to his locker, Lori and Leni appearing as models in matching red dresses on a gameshow called "What's in the Locker?!" with Lily in a tuxedo as the host.

"Well, I think it's safe to say the hallucinations have started," Lincoln muttered to himself, trying to keep steady as he stumbled out the doors to his limo.

" **ONE THING BESIDES THE FIRE THAT'S STRESSING ME OUT IS THIS WHOLE "HERO" NONSENSE. I MEAN, I PULLED THE FIRE ALARM. THAT'S ALL! IT'S NOT A BIG DEAL!"**

Tuesday and Wednesday were the same, as Lincoln slowly sunk further down on the sanity/concentration scale. He kept seeing wilder and crazier things, and for the most part Mrs. Johnson's voice was just "Wah-wah-wah" (which briefly made Lincoln see his classmates as the Peanuts gang, with him in Charlie Brown's clothes; of course he couldn't help but mutter a "Good Grief").

" **IN CONCLUSION…"**

Lincoln sighed again as he looked at Sylvia, who was looking earnestly at the notes she had taken of his little speech. "I just think I'm losing it. I hate to say that, but it's true. I'm just…losing it."

"Lincoln, I understand that what's happened in the past week is a bit much, believe me, I do," She looked at him in concern, "But I truly believe you are being too hard on yourself. You need to try to move on from this. You may not have done MUCH, but you are still a hero." When Lincoln didn't say anything in response, Sylvia sighed, "Look, I want to make another appointment with you, next Saturday, the day after your big Hero Party. I'm hoping that after you see what everyone TRULY thinks of you, not just "congrats" and "way to go", but actual praise, actual recognition, I hope you will see that you have no reason to let yourself fret over the fire and its aftermath."

Lincoln frowned at that. Taking a moment, he briefly wondered what would have happened if he had _just_ been running that errand for Mrs. Johnson, if he had handed the flash drive to Professor Thompson, and as he was about to head back to the cafeteria, the fire had just started on its own. He obviously would have pulled the fire alarm. But what then? Would he still have been labeled a hero? And if so, how would he react? Would he be modest? Would he take advantage of it and all the praise he was getting? Honestly, there was no way to know for sure. All Lincoln KNEW was that he caused the fire, and yet was being hailed as a hero.

"Fine," he muttered, standing up as he noticed the half hour had passed, "I'll see you next Saturday then." At that, he walked out the door, where Luna was waiting with a worried look on her face. Before she could say anything, Lincoln assured her he was fine.

As the two headed out, Sylvia looked at their treating forms with concern. While she had had her suspicions last Thursday, she now knew for certain that Lincoln was keeping a big part of his story from her. The only question was what exactly that part was?

* * *

Lincoln couldn't believe what he was staring at. Nearly two weeks of stress apparently wasn't enough. Now…now things were much, much worse.

When he got to his locker at the end of the day, he thought what he saw was another hallucination. But then he touched it, and knew it was real. As he pulled the note off of his locker, he naively thought it might be a note from a secret admirer; he really liked being with Ronnie Anne, but that didn't mean that he didn't like the thought of another girl wanting him (those girls flirting with him the first couple of days of his hero status actually lifted his stressed-out spirits).

As he opened the note…his heart started beating a million beats per second. He quickly slapped himself until his vision was completely not blurry, but the note was still the same.

 _HERE'S THE PROOF YOU WANTED. FAIRLY CERTAIN YOU HAVEN'T TOLD ANYONE THIS PART OF YOUR STORY. Taped below was a picture of Lincoln trying to put out the flames with the fire extinguisher, only to have the flames crawl back up the spray of foam._

Lincoln quickly shoved the note in his pocket and ran out the front doors, where he ushered his sisters into the limo and told Kirby to get home as fast as possible.

"You ok, Lincoln?" Kirby asked, looking at his boss/friend in the rearview mirror.

"I'm fine!" Lincoln snapped, surprising his younger sisters, "I just wanna get home!"

"Ok…" Kirby was a little put-off by Lincoln's attitude, but decided it was probably just nerves for the big hero party tomorrow.

When the group arrived home, Lincoln was about to race up to his room, but Kirby stopped him, "So, Linc, I figure I'll pick you up from school as usual tomorrow. The party starts at 6:00, so I'll probably head to the car wash after I drop you off to make sure the limo looks extra nice for when you arrive. Then I'll head straight back here, and we can leave by about 5:00, so ya get there a little early. Sound good?"

"Yeah, yeah, sure, sounds great, Sonic," Lincoln muttered, before rushing out of the limo and into the house, straight up to his room.

"Did he just call me…?" Kirby asked, uncertain if he had heard right.

"Probably just stressed out," Lola spoke up, "And he hasn't had time to play video games lately, so he's more-than-likely got them on the brain." She and Lana forced smiles at their chauffer, hoping he wouldn't pick up the fact that they, too, were concerned over their brother's recent odd behavior.

"Ok, makes sense I guess," Kirby shrugged his shoulders indifferently as the three girls exited the limo, "See you girls tomorrow."

"Bye, Kirby," Lola and Lana said in unison. After he pulled away, they looked at each other in worry.

Over the past week, the rest of the sisters had picked up on the fat that something was clearly bothering their brother, but Lori had ordered them to leave him alone, that he would come to them for help when he was ready. Though they hated it, they had all agreed to their oldest sister's terms.

Except one. Without the twins noticing, Lucy had followed after her brother, determined to get to the bottom of what was troubling him. She knew it was not just the stress of the fire or the nervousness about the party tomorrow; there was something more going on here, and she knew if not Luna, then it was up to HER to help her brother out.

Upon reaching the top of the stairs, Lucy turned to her brother's bedroom. She briefly considered going through the vents to surprise him, but decided now was not the time for that. Instead, she did something she rarely ever did: she walked over to her brother's door and got ready to knock…

Only to freeze in shock when she heard her brother crying on the other side of the door. It was obvious he was trying to use his pillow to muffle the sound, but she could still hear it.

Not caring about privacy, Lucy opened the door and hurried into her brother's room, catching him off guard as he jumped in in surprise. Lucy quickly shut the door as she stared at her brother, suddenly at a loss for what to say to him.

Lincoln was laying on his bed, body facing up, head turned towards her, his pillow on his chest; his eyes were red and had tears running down his cheeks.

"Lucy…I…please get out. I n…need to work on my speech," He said, trying to convince himself of the lie just as much as his little sister.

Lucy could hear the pleading in her brother's words, and was unsure of what exactly to do. She knew he was upset, and he wasn't even trying to hide it from her. But she could also tell he felt trapped and afraid, like he just didn't know what to do.

Sighing, Lucy turned and started to head out, figuring the best thing to do would be to wait until Luna was done with her music thing (unbeknownst to Lincoln, she was actually preparing a special song about him, planning on singing it at the party) and ask her for help.

As his little sister opened his door and started to exit, Lincoln thought back to the night he had heard Lucy plead for Lincoln to open up to someone. At that moment, he realized there was no way out of what was going to happen. What _exactly_ was going to happen, he couldn't say; he knew he had to go to the party tomorrow, where he would be reminded that he was nothing but a cowardly fraud. As for his blackmailer, he just KNEW it wasn't a coincidence that he had gotten the letter today, right before his "big night". Was something bad gonna happen at the party, like the supposed video being broadcast for everyone to see?

Lincoln didn't know. But what he did know, was that no matter what happened, he needed to get this off his chest NOW! He honestly didn't care who he told, just so long as it was someone close to him. Lucy and he had always been close to each other, always there to listen whenever one of them needed to get something off their chest. Plus, she was pretty much the QUEEN of keeping secrets, even more so than Luna.

"Wait!" Lincoln said, stopping Lucy in her tracks. She turned back to her brother, who bit his lip as he sat up, "Lucy, I…I have something I need to get off my chest. It's driving me crazy, and I have to tell someone. Can I…can I tell you?"

"Of course, big brother," Lucy said (almost eagerly), hopping back onto his bed, "You can tell me anything."

Lincoln couldn't even find it in himself to face his sister. He just stared at his hands folded in his lap. "If…if I tell you this, it has to stay between us, ok?" Lincoln could feel the tears threatening to spill from his eyes, "You can't tell Luna or ny of the other sisters or your friends, ok?"

Lucy frowned; she already knew that Lincoln really needed to get something off his chest, as it was clearly tearing him up inside. She was a bit surprised that he wasn't choosing Luna to tell, but she wasn't gonna complain. Whatever he told her, she would keep it to herself until he was ready to tell the others.

Knowing her brother was clearly nervous about revealing this, Lucy did something she rarely ever did: she wrapped her brother in a hug and held him, gently rubbing his back as he lightly sobbed.

After a couple minutes, Lincoln finally managed to compose himself and took a couple deep breaths, "Ok, here goes."

Lucy pulled away from her hug, yet still held one of Lincoln's hands.

Still staring at his lap, Lincoln sighed, "I know who started the fire."

Lucy's eyes went wide (though still hidden under her hair) as she thought back to Lisa's theory about exactly this possibility; despite Lisa's insistence that this is what was upsetting their brother, Lucy had definitely not been expecting this to be what was eating her brother up inside. After a moment of shocked silence, she found her voice, "Who?"

Lincoln started shaking again, as though he was gonna break down bawling. But he kept himself together as he turned to his younger sister and replied, "Me."

* * *

 **Gonna be honest, this chapter gave me quite a bit of trouble, took a lot longer than I thought it would. After I thought it over, I decided to just jump ahead to right before the party. I thought about "Requiem For a Loud" and how each sister gets a chapter around them, with each chapter usually being a day long. I honestly thought about doing something like that, showing Lincoln interact with each sister while slowly going into this stressful downward spiral. But then I realized that since I'm trying to write a bit of a series, with each sister getting their time to shine (I already put up Leni's story "Used and Abused: A Friend in Need") I didn't need to do that for this story. Plus, I realized I didn't have a lot of material that wasn't just repeating the "Lincoln is stressed, can't sleep or eat, worries his family won't love him anymore, etc" deal. As such, I figured it would be best to do a bit of a "montage" jumping forward.**

 **And yes, Lincoln has finally told one of his sisters the truth. I figured that was something that needed to happen before the big finale, as it shows that he could only hold on so much.**

 **I decided to start with one for now, and obviously I was gonna go with one of his closer sisters. This eliminated Lisa, Lynn, Lola, and Lori, due to them usually being the "meaner ones" (or in Lisa's case, unemotional).**

 **As for the closer sisters, Lily was out, because she couldn't really do much to help. I figured Leni and Luan wouldn't be of too much help, other than to offer comfort. I also figured Lana just doesn't seem like the "shoulder to cry on" type of sister. That left Luna and Lucy. Despite showing Luna and Lincoln's strong relationship, I ultimately went with Lucy, because she seems like the one who would be able to keep a secret better. However, we'll just have to wait until the next chapter to see if that's true.**

 **And of course, Lincoln found out his blackmailer actually does have proof of him starting the fire. The day before his big party. This will probably not end well.**

 **R &R**


	7. Beginning of the End

**Wow, this…did not start out too well. I'll just leave it at that.**

 **Enjoy :)  
**

* * *

Lucy Loud had always been the queen of surprising others, especially in her own home. Her ability to move around undetected, ducking down, crawling through vents, and even using her dark clothes to move through the shadows was admired by many, and creeped out by others.

Due to being the one who always surprised her family, it was rare for Lucy herself to be surprised. Her friends, notably Haiku, could occasionally come close, but anytime they appeared behind her out of nowhere, she would whip around and casually greet them. As such, actually feeling surprised was an unknown sensation for Lucy.

However, she knew that surprise was EXACTLY what she was feeling now as she stared at her brother with wide eyes; so wide she knew he could see them.

Despite it being the first time in forever that he was seeing his little sister's eyes, Lincoln wasn't even paying attention to that. He was staring at Lucy with tears in his eyes as she stared back at him in…what was it? Surprise? Shock? Horror?

After what felt like forever, Lucy finally allowed herself to calm down and took a deep breath. She took a few more, worried she might freak out if she wasn't fully calmed down before she said something to her brother.

Not knowing what his little sister was going to say or do was making Lincoln freak out inside; she needed to say SOMETHING. Anything to let him know what she was thinking. Did she still love him? Was she disgusted by him? Would she stop talking to him and convince the other sisters to follow suit?

"What happened?"

Lincoln looked at her, surprised, "W…what?"

"What happened?" Lucy repeated, brushing her hair down so it covered her eyes again, "I know you are not some crazy arsonist, so tell me exactly what happened."

Lincoln felt a wave of relief wash over him as he hugged Lucy. However, she did not hug him back, acting like a young kid being hugged by a grandparent he or she was upset with.

Picking up on this, Lincoln released his sister and took a deep breath as he began his tale.

"…and then I just ran out of the school," Lincoln sighed, "I was so freaked out about what would happen if anyone found out so I…I just kept quiet, hoping it would all blow over. But then the guilt started messing with me. I haven't been able to eat or sleep for 2 weeks."

Lucy tried to process everything her brother had told her. She had at least a dozen questions, but her mind instantly went to the very last thing her brother had said, "How are you still, ya know, functioning with two weeks of no sleep or food?"

"I…uh…I think it's mostly stress-fueled adrenaline," Lincoln admitted, "Though I can tell it's starting to die down. For the most part I feel fine (more or less), but other times I feel like I'm seconds away from passing out."

Lucy frowned. While she was, of course, trying to figure out everything her brother was telling her, she was also deeply worried for him. Clearly, he was going through too much at once. Accidentally starting the fire was one thing, but then having it be declared arson WHILE he was declared a hero for his actions during the fire…Lucy couldn't even fathom what all was going through her big brother's mind. However, one thing was certain.

"We need to tell the others," She stated bluntly.

"We can't!" Lincoln looked at his younger sister with alarm, "What if they think I'm an arsonist and hate me?"

Lucy frowned at the worry in her brother's voice. At least now she knew why he hadn't told anyone. "Lincoln, we need to get this out in the open. You're clearly losing it. Maybe the others could help you deal with your stress. Maybe they can help come up with a way to help this all die down."

"Actually..." Lincoln rubbed his neck nervously, "There's one other thing I haven't told you."

Lucy raised an eyebrow in confusion, "What? I mean, you accidentally burned down the school, you're being honored due to a misunderstanding, and you've got enough stress for a dozen people. What else is there to tell me?"

Lincoln took a deep breath and sighed as he reached into his backpack and pulled out the note that had been taped to his locker and handed it to Lucy. She opened it up and her eyes went wide.

"Someone knows I started the fire, and they're blackmailing me."

Lucy looked at the note and photo for a moment, before leaping at her brother and wrapping him in a hug. She instantly felt ashamed that even a sliver of a negative thought about her brother had crossed her mind. He clearly needed her right now.

Lincoln was surprised by Lucy's reaction, but he didn't complain as he hugged her back, letting a few tears fall as well.

* * *

BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP

Lincoln jolted awake with a start. Looking around, he realized he was in his bed, in his pajamas. He noticed that it was 6:40 AM, time to get up for school. He also noticed that someone was hugging him, but this person was too small to be Luna. Pulling the covers back, Lincoln saw Lucy hugging his side.

Lincoln smiled as he noticed Lucy start to stir. He gently shook her awake. She opened her eyes and looked up at him.

"Morning, Lincoln," she said dully, sitting up, "Did you sleep well?"

Lincoln opened his mouth to reply, only to freeze as he realized he didn't remember ANYTHING after he and Lucy had hugged yesterday when he told her he started the fire. He also realized that…he actually felt pretty good. He was still feeling nervous, but for the first time since the fire, he felt refreshed.

Noticing her brother's confusion, Lucy simply said, "After you told me about your blackmailer, I hugged you, and you passed out. I told everyone you weren't feeling well, so they left you alone. When it was time for bed, Mom came in and changed you into your pajamas, and I asked Luna if I could sleep with you instead of her, which she thought was a good idea."

"So…" Lincoln paused as he tried to figure out everything, "I've been asleep since around 4:30 yesterday?"

"Yup," Lucy nodded, "You slept for about 14 hours. Since you haven't been sleeping much lately, it makes sense that when you finally COULD sleep, your body would need a lot of it. Did you have any nightmares?"

Lincoln merely shook his head, surprised that he had both been able to sleep AND not have any nightmares. He figured the reason had to be because he had finally TOLD someone that he had started the fire, thus managing to slightly alleviate his guilt.

However, as soon as he realized this, he was also struck with a startling realization. He looked at Lucy with wide eyes, but before he could say anything, she held a hand up to his mouth, stopping him.

"I didn't tell anyone about the fire," She said, and Lincoln sighed in relief, ready to thank her, but she continued, "Because you need to be the one that does that."

Lincoln bit his bottom lip, not looking his sister in the eyes. She sighed, "Lincoln, you've been messed up for two weeks because you're carrying this huge secret around. But look what happened the second you told someone: a part of that guilt chipped away. You need to tell the rest of the family."

"But what…what if…" Lincoln wanted to ask the question about his family not loving him anymore because of what he did, yet Lucy was clearly ok with it, having been willing to hear him out; it would probably hurt her to hear his worst possible outcome scenario, so he asked the OTHER big question on his mind, "But what then? I mean, I burned down the school. Even if it was an accident, I'm still in a world of trouble." He frowned at that, which his sister noticed.

"Lincoln, I don't know a lot, but I do know that if you go to this Hero Party tonight, your guilt is only gonna grow." At that, Lucy hopped out of bed and made her way towards the door, turning to look at her brother before exiting, "Tell the family, tell your friends. Otherwise, this is never gonna go away, blackmailer or not."

As his Gothic sister left his room, Lincoln sighed, acknowledging she was right. Even without his blackmailer, all this stress was messing him up. But when he had told Lucy, he felt a huge chunk of that stress disappear. Would telling the others help even more? Most likely, yes, but would they accept it like Lucy, or would they turn their backs on him and kick him out? It still hurt to think about this, even more now that he had actually told someone.

Shaking his head, Lincoln hopped out of bed to get ready for the day. He knew he REALLY wasn't looking forward to tonight, but what choice did he have? He was the Hero Party's Guest of Honor, for pete's sake! If he didn't show up, it would look really bad.

But Lucy was right when she said if that if he did go, his stress levels would only rise, possibly to a critical level.

"Why me?" He muttered, "Even when something good happens for me, there's still the underlying bad that goes with it."

* * *

As Lincoln and his younger sisters exited the limo and headed into the school, Lincoln sighed miserably as he felt all eyes on him, everyone giving him nods and thumbs-ups. He briefly wondered why, but then remembered Leni's video from last week.

Once everyone was in class, the PA system turned on, with a message from Principal Huggins, "Everyone, I'd like to take a moment and give a shout out to our young hero, Lincoln Loud. Tonight, he is getting honored for his heroic actions at the Tetherby Country Club Annual Hero Party. So, let's take a moment and give him a round of applause." At that, Huggins paused as, throughout the entire school, Lincoln's schoolmates applauded him. "Also, I've discussed with every teacher in school: as the event will be broadcast live on TV, anyone who watches it and writes a 1-page paper on what they thought about the event will receive extra credit. And with the end of the year just a couple months away, might not be a bad idea to look into adding some extra points to your grades. That will be all."

Lincoln's classmates started smirking at each other, the thought of some extra credit gained by simply watching TV too good of an offer to pass up. Once again, they flashed Lincoln a thumb's up and gave him praise. Lincoln forced a smile on his face and thanked everyone, as Mrs. Johnson got them to settle down so she could begin class.

At lunch, all of Lincoln's friends congratulated him and wished him luck at the party tonight. Lincoln thanked them as he dully at his meal. He could tell Lucy was staring at him with concern. He knew she wanted him to tell someone. He looked at Ronnie Anne and Clyde, his two closest friends. He opened his mouth to say something, but just couldn't find it in himself to do so. He flashed Lucy an apologetic frown as he got back to his lunch.

The rest of the day went more or less the same, with Lincoln getting cheers and congratulations from his classmates and teachers. Absent-mindedly, he looked around to see if anyone was glaring at him, with a futile hope he may be able to identify his blackmailer. But alas, everyone was looking at him with pride and envy.

To say this was a day Lincoln wanted to be over would be an understatement.

* * *

Upon arriving home, Mom was already dressed and ready to go. "Your father's in the shower," She told the kids, "I want you all to get ready to go as soon as possible. Kirby will be back to pick us up in just over an hour. That means take quick showers, get dressed even quicker. Lisa?"

They all turned to the second youngest, who sighed as she stated, "It's 3:45. At average, if we all take 5 minute showers, we'll have plenty of time to get dressed and ready to go by the time our ride arrives at 5:00."

"You heard Lisa," Rita said, as Lynn Sr. hurried down the stairs in his bath robe, heading to his and his wife's room, "I don't care which of you goes first, but I want one of you in the shower now. When you're done in the bathroom, call out. I don't want a line. While one of you is in the shower, I want the rest of you getting your outfits ready. I think it goes without saying that this is one night you get to wear your good outfits. Everyone clear?"

Everyone nodded, and all hurried upstairs. They all headed into their rooms, and Lori immediately exited hers carrying her bathrobe, heading into the bathroom. The rest of the siblings milled about their rooms, going into their closets and getting their good outfits. Of course, being in such a large, middle-class family, the kids didn't have a lot of fancy clothes, so the few good clothes they did have were saved for special occasions.

All the girls had dresses and (save for Lily) heals that were meant to make them look their best. While Lori was in the shower, the rest of the sisters went into their closets and started getting their clothes ready.

"DONE!"

Leni, who had gotten out her nicest dark green, strapless dress, exited her room with her bathrobe and entered the bathroom.

Lori went into her room and got out her favorite blue dress. It matched Leni's other than color and the ruffles at the bottom.

"DONE!"

Luna and Luan had their clothes laid out on Luan's bunk: a purple wrap around dress for Luna, and a gold spaghetti-strap dress for Luan.

Luna hurried in the bathroom, not noticing Fangs the bat flying down from the attic carrying Lucy's black (not spooky themed, just black) sleeveless dress with a purple rose on the chest.

"DONE!"

Luan hurried into the bathroom as Lola and Lana got in a fight over which dress was theirs. They had matching white dresses that looked exactly alike. With their hair done and without their cap and tiara, it would be impossible to tell the twins apart.

"DONE!"

Lucy hurried into the bathroom as Lynn got her red, ruffled dress out and laid it on her bed.

Meanwhile, Lisa got her opera dress out and took the big, poofy sleeves off, giving it a simpler look.

"DONE!"

Lynn hurried in the shower, while Rita took Lily downstairs and gave her a bath in the tub.

"DONE!"

Lola hurried and took her shower, followed by Lana. By this point, the sisters who had already taken their showers were getting dressed. For the special occasion, Lori and Leni agreed to loan their younger sisters some of their jewelry.

"DONE!"

Lincoln sighed as he heard Lisa yell out she was done in the shower, meaning it was his turn. He had spent the last half-hour looking at the "surprise" that had been laying on his bed when he got home: a fancy black tuxedo. It looked just like one of the _Men in Black_ tuxedos, and he could imagine it was a pricey purchase for his parents. Originally, he had a nice pair of khakis and his dad's old (light blue, extremely dorky) prom jacket as his nicest outfit. He guessed his parents wanted to give him something extra nice to wear for his big night.

Begrudgingly accepting he had to get ready for this "special night", Lincoln grabbed his bathrobe and loofa and made his way towards the bathroom. As he took his shower, Lincoln sighed again. He had no idea what all was going to happen tonight. He knew he had to give a small speech and accept his "Guest of Honor" title, but then what? He would likely be given SOME TYPE of award, but what about the picture the blackmailer had? A week-and-a-half of silence, only to reveal he had not been bluffing the day before the big party could NOT be a coincidence.

"What's gonna happen?" He moaned, "Will I be giving my speech when everyone gets a text, or will there be a projector that will be playing a slide show that will suddenly turn to the picture? Why? Why did I agree to run that errand for Mrs. Johnson? If I had just said no, then none of this would be happening. These last two weeks would have been normal, and tonight would be just another Friday night."

In fact, as Lincoln was scrubbing his hair, he remembered that a couple months ago, _Terrible Movie_ had come out. He and Clyde had thought it looked funny, but not "opening night price" funny. They had agreed to see it when it came on at the $1 Movie Theater in the mall, which, if he recalled correctly, was supposed to happen soon. Chances were it was there at that very moment, just waiting for the two best friends to go see it.

Sighing, Lincoln exited the bathroom and headed back to his room, where he put on the tuxedo and combed his hair; he then brushed his teeth and put on a big smile as he exited his room.

"Lookin' good, little bro," Luna said, flashing Lincoln a thumbs-up as she exited her room.

"You, too," Lincoln said, smiling at how beautiful his sister looked. In fact, ALL his sisters looked absolutely stunning. He smiled, glad that something good came out of this. After all, it wasn't every day that the Loud sisters all looked their absolute best.

After they all confirmed they were ready and looked their best, the Loud siblings headed downstairs, where Rita was holding Lily, who was wearing a nice pink dress. At that moment, Lynn Sr. exited his room, carrying a pool cue.

"Everyone listen up!" He said, getting his children's attention, "Tonight is a big night, and as such, I felt it necessary to use the pool cue. I know we haven't used it in some time, but since we're going to a fancy country club, I figured it would be a good idea to use it." At that, he walked up to Lincoln. "Now, son, since this is your big night, I'll let you explain the way the pool cue is used."

"But we all know how you use it," Lincoln said, confused.

"Yes, we do," Lynn Sr. nodded, "But I feel it would be good to refresh everyone's memories, seeing as it's been a while since we've needed to use it."

"Plus, Linky," Leni spoke up, "You can tell your invisible friends you're always talking to."

Lincoln sighed as a couple of the sisters chuckled at that. Rolling his eyes, he explained, "We stand in a straight line, oldest to youngest. Dad will move down the line, touching each of our shoulders with the pool cue. When our shoulder is touched, we will explain how we are expected to act tonight. The idea is we will be able to go from one sibling to another, speaking one consecutive thought. The rules are obviously the same, though due to the event there may be some altering of the way things are said."

"Right," Rita nodded, "And Lincoln, sweetie, since it's your night, you don't need to get in line."

Lincoln said nothing, simply nodding as he stood next to his mother and watched his sisters get in line, standing in formation like they usually did when Lori babysat them.

Lynn Sr. looked at his daughters with a serious expression as he got at the end of the line, right in front of Lori. He took a deep breath, and began, "Tonight, we, the Loud family, will be going to the Tetherby Country Club for its Annual Hero Party. While at this event…"

He stopped talking as he placed the end of the pool cue on Lori's shoulder. Lori continued, "We are expected to be on our best behavior, due to the fact that this is a place of high esteem and culture." She stopped talking as Dad lifted the pool cue off her shoulder and moved onto Leni.

Leni thought for a moment, before remembering her part, "This means we are not to be wild, rambunctious, or our name, loud."

And so it went, Lynn Sr. placing the pool cue on each girl's shoulder, having them state the rules of the night.

Luna: "Tonight is our little bro's night. That means we gotta give him support and be happy for him, accepting that it is not our night."

Luan: "At the club, we will sit through all the events as though we would in school: quiet and giving the speakers our full attention."

Lynn Jr.: "We will applaud when appropriate, though for the most part we will smile and nod as we hear any and all speeches."

Lucy: "When it is Lincoln's turn to speak, we will clap a little louder, maybe yell out a "WOO!" or "THAT'S OUR BROTHER!", but other than that we will simply clap politely."

Lola: "When Lincoln gets his award, if the club wants a family photo, we will get up and calmly make our way towards Lincoln, posing appropriately."

Lana: "Sorta like the perfect photo Lincoln wanted to give you guys for your anniversary. But this time, we will gladly wait for however long the photographer needs to take the picture."

Lisa: "Afterwards, we will leave calmly, not drawing any attention to ourselves as we make our way to the exit."

Finally, Dad got to Lily. As the pool cue was placed on her shoulder, she smiled and clapped, "Incoln, jabba dabba ippa." She then closed her eyes and shook her head, "No poo poo."

"Alright," Rita said, smiling, "Sounds like we're good to go." At that moment, a HONK HONK was heard out front. "Sounds like Kirby's here. Everyone ready?" All the sisters nodded, and Rita and Lynn Sr. started ushering them out.

Lincoln watched his sisters head out the door. Lucy paused and sent him a look, but immediately resumed heading back out.

Sighing, Lincoln checked his pocket to make sure he had his speech, and hurried after his family.

* * *

After picking up the McBrides, Lintons, and Santiagos, Kirby headed to the party. Needless to say, all of the Loud family were in awe as the limo pulled up to the Tetherby Country Club. There were tons of news crews all around as many people exited their limos and entered through the gates.

Suddenly, the almost deafening cheering got even louder as Kirby pulled up at the gate. He hurried around to open the door (easier said than done with people crowded around it, trying to get a look at the "Guest of Honor").

Lincoln gulped nervously, but then felt his hand get squeezed as Luna shot him a small smile, "You got his, bro."

Lincoln smiled back as Kirby finally opened the door. The group had decided on the way there that Lincoln should be the last one to exit, seeing as he was the big star of the night. Mr. and Mrs. Santiago, Ms. Linton, and Mr. and Mr. McBride exited, followed by Clyde, Sammy, and Bobby. Mr. and Mrs. Loud, the latter holding Lily, exited, followed by the rest of the sisters. Finally, it was just Lincoln and Ronnie Anne. His would-be girlfriend grabbed his hand, and the two exited the limo.

Needless to say, most of the family would have a hard time hearing for a while after the cheers increased to a maximum level, as well as a hard time seeing due to all the camera flashes that came from the press and paparazzi.

Finally, Lincoln and his family made it inside the gates, where it was just a straight walk up a road to the steps, where two guards were standing.

Lincoln's group made it inside, and stood in line as a person read a list of the guests.

"This is so fancy," Lola whisper-squealed, "It's just like Cinderella and the ball."

"OUR GUEST OF HONOR, LINCOLN LOUD AND HIS PARTY!" The list reader yelled out, causing the ballroom to erupt in applause for the young hero.

As the family headed down the steps, Tetherby stepped up to greet them, "Glad you could make it, Louds. I have your two tables up right by the stage, perfect viewing area. And of course, when food is served, you shall be the first to get in line."

The adults nodded politely, while the kids thanked the man. They made it to their tables, where they tried to figure out the seating arrangements. Thankfully this was done with only a bit of quiet whispering and shuffling around. At table 1 was Lincoln, Ronnie Anne, Clyde, Lucy, Luna, Lynn Jr., Lola, Lana, Luan, and Lisa. At table 2 was Mr. and Mrs. Loud, Lily, Mr. and Mrs. Santigo, Bobby, Lori, Ms. Linton, Sammy, Leni, Howard and Harold.

As they watched the rest of the guests arrive, the kids quietly chatted amongst themselves, looking around the fancy resort in awe. It wasn't every day that they got to be in a place like this.

While watching the final guests arrive, Lincoln could tell Lucy was staring at him in concern. He wanted to say something, but what could he say? "I'll tell everyone my stupid, dark secret after the party. That is, if I can be sure they won't hate me for it." Yeah, that definitely wouldn't raise any red flags.

As the last guests, the Police Chief and his wife, arrived, Lincoln dully looked around the room. His eyes went wide when he swore he spotted someone who should NOT be there. "Is that-?" He muttered, only to be interrupted as Tetherby came up to his table.

"Loud, if you would be so kind, the speeches are about to start. We'll be sending everyone to get their food, and while they're doing that, our speakers usually mingle and go over their speeches backstage."

"R…right," Lincoln nodded, looking over where he thought for sure he had seen _him_. But no one was there. Lincoln shakily got up, everyone wishing him luck as he headed backstage.

Upon getting back there, he saw several police officers, firemen, and doctors. They were all talking with each other and going over their speeches for the night. One by one, they noticed him, and stopped talking.

"Um…hi," Lincoln said meekly, "Nice to, uh…nice to meet all of you. I'm Lincoln, the…the Guest of Honor." He gulped as they said nothing, simply continuing to stare him down, as if expecting something from him.

"So," He said after a minute of uncomfortable silence, "I just wanna say I admire all of you. I, uh…I don't really know why I'm here. I'm not a hero like the rest of you are."

At that, several of them shifted their eyes at each other, before the Police Chief walked up to Lincoln and stared down at him, his eyes piercing. Lincoln gulped as the Police Chief crouched down to his level.

"Kid, let me tell you something about heroes…"

* * *

 **So, next chapter we get to see Lincoln's big speech. How will it go? Will the blackmailer show up? Will Lincoln's sanity be obliterated? And who was the mysterious person Lincoln saw at the party who shouldn't be there?**

 **Also, I know the newest special revealed that Mr. Santiago is gone. But I decided to just keep him here since he has already been mentioned in this story.**

 **R &R**


	8. The Big Party

**Glad people liked the last chapter. A couple of you mentioned that I put Lana and Lola in the wrong order from oldest to youngest. Sorry about that. But all in all, glad the last chapter got mostly good reviews.**

 **Also, a fan of mine, PRStorm, made a pic for the last chapter on DeviantArt. Be sure to check it out.**

* * *

Lincoln gulped as the Police Chief, Chief O'Bannon, stared him straight in the eyes for what felt like an eternity. Finally, he spoke, "Kid, a hero…doesn't need to be so modest!"

At that, several of the others started chuckling as a look of surprise washed over Lincoln's face.

Chief O'Bannon smiled as he continued, "Son, in my 40 plus years on the force, I've seen a lot of different types of people. I've seen scumbags who deliberately set up dangerous situations so they can swoop in and act like the hero. I've seen people just doing their jobs and being heroes in the process. And I've seen plenty of people like you: people who just happened to be in the right place at the right time."

"But-" Lincoln began, only to get cut off as the O'Bannon raised a hand to silence him.

"Lincoln, right?" Lincoln nodded. "Lincoln, when someone does something heroic, even something that may seem small and insignificant at the time, they have the right to feel proud of it. I get you think pulling the fire alarm might not feel like much (even after the explanation your teacher gave about the smoke detectors being faulty and the oven causing a small fire), but it IS. You got everyone out of the school before they would have been in any danger, and that is one of the best cases of "right place, right time" I've ever heard of."

At that moment, another police officer spoke up, "Kinda reminds me of this one time my brother-in-law was backing out of a parking space at the mall. He didn't see this guy walking behind his car and accidentally hit him, causing him to fall over and smack his forehead on another car. Guy went to the hospital, where it was discovered his DNA matched DNA evidence found at three murders. We got to call three families and tell them the scumbag who took their loved ones was behind bars. My bro worked at the movie theater, and it was just a normal day for him. Yet it ended with him getting letters of thanks from those families, as well as praise from the mayor. He was modest about it, but he accepted that he had done a good thing, even if it was completely accidental."

O'Bannon nodded, before turning back to Lincoln, "So, Lincoln, I don't wanna hear any nonsense about you apparently not belonging with us. You did a good thing, and tonight is your night."

The rest of the speakers nodded, as several chefs brought in plates for them to eat while they prepared.

"Everyone has just lined up to get their food, and when they've all got their plates, it'll be time for you to take your seats on stage," The head chef explained, handing Lincoln a plate with a slice of pizza, a turkey leg, and some pasta on it, "You've got a few minutes to eat and go over your speeches. Lord Tetherby has stated he would like you to go last, Mr. Loud, so that you can close the night with your speech. Save the best for last, and all that."

Everyone nodded as they began eating and discussing their speeches. Lincoln slipped away from them towards the punch bowl, where he poured himself a cup and mulled over what all Chief O'Bannon had told him. Again, he wondered what would have happened if the fire had just naturally started, and he had pulled the fire alarm. Would he still act modest, or would he be soaking up the praise? One thing was for certain, he definitely wouldn't be going through such a large amount of guilt.

"Why me?" Lincoln muttered to himself as he sipped his punch, "Why is it always me?"

* * *

A few minutes later, the speakers were at a long table on stage (resembling the seating for a roast, with the podium in the middle of the table) casually eating their food as Tetherby stepped up to the microphone.

"Greetings, ladies and gentlemen!" he exclaimed, "I hope you are all having a good time tonight. Seeing as everyone appears to be ready…" He eyes the food table, where the last couple of guests were getting their meals, "We'll go ahead and get started. Our first speaker tonight is one of my oldest friends, and one of our town's oldest heroes. Please give a hand for Police Chief Phil O'Bannon!"

At his seat right next podium, Chief O'Bannon wiped his mouth and stood up, politely waving to the cheering crowd. He got up to the podium and cleared his throat, waiting for the cheering to die down.

"What is a hero?" He asked the crowd, looking to his left, then to his right, where all the speakers were seated.

For the next couple hours, the presenters gave their speeches, giving their examples of what defined a hero, who all could be a hero, stuff like that.

"A hero is someone strong."

"A hero knows when to act."

"A hero is there for the people that need him or her."

"A hero is…"

"A hero is…"

"A hero…"

"A hero…"

"Hero…"

"Hero…"

All the while, in his seat next to the podium (left side), Lincoln ate his meal while listening to these people, REAL heroes, telling tales of their exploits. He kept a straight face, but all in all it made him sick that he was seated with these people. He was the LAST person that should be within a hundred miles of this Hero Party, let alone being the Guest of Honor. Honestly, even if it wasn't directed at him, the word "hero" was starting to make him feel sick."

Finally, just before 9:00 Tetherby stepped up to the podium, "I hope you have all had a pleasant evening so far. The speeches are just about over, after which there will be dancing in the ballroom next door, along with dessert being served. So now, to finish off our speeches, I present our Guest of Honor, Lincoln Loud!"

At that, the room erupted in applause as Lincoln got up from his seat and took to the podium, looking out at the giant room filled with people in front of him. He pulled his speech out from his pocket and cleared his throat. He really didn't want to go through with this. It was just so wrong. But what could he do?

He got his cue cards out and started to read them, "A…uh…a hero is…a hero can be defined by…um…" Lincoln paused and looked down at his family and friends, who were all beaming up at him. His gaze shifted to Lucy, who looked up at him with a frown on her face; not her usual stoic frown, but a frown of disappointment. As Lincoln stared down at her, he couldn't help but feel…strange. Looking up and all around, he saw he had everyone's attention. As he looked around the room, the strange new feeling inside him grew, and he soon realized what it was: courage.

Sighing, Lincoln tore up his speech cards and looked straight ahead as he stated, "A hero is someone who does what's right, no matter what. A hero is brave in the face of anything. A hero knows for sure anytime he's let someone down. Well, I haven't been a hero at all tonight, or these past couple weeks. I'm no hero…" He paused, closed his eyes, took a deep breath, and sighed, "Because I'm the one who started the fire."

A large, collective gasp rose up around the room as people started murmuring in shock. Though he didn't want to, Lincoln nervously opened his eyes and looked down at his group. All of them, even Lucy, had their jaws dropped in shock.

Lincoln saw Chief O'Bannon start to get up out of his seat and panicked. His courage officially drained, Lincoln turned and took off through the curtains, not sure exactly where he was going. As he ran, however, he realized one thing: he felt better than he had in days. Obviously telling the truth about the fire had managed to obliterate all of his guilt. Of course, the guilt was understandably replaced with a new feeling: fear of going to jail.

As Lincoln ran through the Country Club's main building, he started to hear footsteps behind him. Thinking quickly, he ducked down a side hall and crouched down in the shadows, waiting for whoever was chasing him to run past. It worked, and he saw Chief O'Bannon run past, not noticing him.

Knowing he couldn't stay there long, Lincoln turned and hurried down the side hall. He realized he was likely in the servant's area, as he passed a couple of doors marked "maintenance" and saw a mop bucket and couple bottles of cleaning supplies lying about.

As he was running, Lincoln felt his phone vibrate with texts. He was sure it was not only his family, but also his friends who had been watching the event live on TV. He would have to deal with them later. Right now, he had to…what, exactly? What was the plan here? Keep running until he was in the middle of nowhere? Keep running until he passed out? All he had known at the time he confessed was that he was tired of lying, but he hadn't taken any time to think about the after affects.

As Lincoln finally exited the servant's hall, he saw several officers looking around, likely for him. He turned to head back down the hall he had just come from, but saw that a couple officers had appeared at the end of it and were making their way towards him. Quietly, Lincoln stepped to the left, away from the officers searching for him. He had no idea what to do, as any second they would see him. He was so worried about this that he failed to notice he had stepped right up to a slightly open door.

As Lincoln tried to figure a way out of this mess, he didn't notice two arms reaching out behind him. Right as one officer turned towards Lincoln, the arms grabbed him, one clamping over his mouth and pulling him inside the room. Lincoln struggled as whoever had him kept a tight hold on him as someone else in the room quickly and quietly closed the door.

At that moment, the light turned on, revealing Lincoln's family, who were all looking at him in concern. Lynn was (not surprisingly) the one who had grabbed Lincoln, and after making sure he was calm, let go of her brother.

No one said anything as Lincoln stared at his family. Everyone seemed to be at a loss for words. For a good two minutes, the room they were in (which Lincoln noticed appeared to be a prepping room for the Club's spa workers), was full of an uncomfortable silence, with each member of the family opening their mouths to say something, only to close them, unable to think of what to say, at least once. Finally, it was Lucy who stepped forward.

"Lincoln told me yesterday that he was the one who started the fire, and he's been dealing with guilt and stress ever since," The Goth girl sighed, looking at her brother with pity, "I tried to get him to tell you guys so you could help, but he was too nervous to."

"I…I'm so sorry," Lincoln choked out, "I just…I've just been so stressed out since this whole thing started. And the fact that I haven't been able haven't been able to eat or sleep since the day of the fire hasn't helped. I didn't mean to start the fire, honest! I was so worried that everyone would think I did it on purpose that I kept silent. But then I revealed that I pulled the fire alarm, and that just spiraled out of control. I tried to keep my cool, but I'm losing it. I've had to lie awake in Luna's arms every night because I can't sleep without having horrific nightmares, and I've had to wait for you all to be distracted so I could pile my food onto Leni's plate because the thought of eating makes me nauseous." At that, Lincoln clutched his stomach, the food he had eaten during the speeches not setting too well.

"Wait a minute," Leni spoke up, looking at her brother in confusion, "You've been piling your food on MY plate?" Lincoln nodded, and Leni looked down at her stomach, "I wondered why my dress seemed a little tight."

"Sorry, Leni," Lincoln grimaced, "I just…I just haven't been able to eat, and it was easy to hide at the kiddie table, due to all the food fights and horsing around. But when Mom and Dad invited me to the adult table, I needed to find a way to make sure none of you found out, and waiting until you were done and switching plates with you was the best I could come up with."

The Loud family looked at each other, unsure of what to say at this point. Finally, after a couple more minutes of uncomfortable silence, Luna stepped forward, "Bro, why didn't you think you could tell us what happened? We're your family. We always have your back."

Lincoln looked down, almost ashamed of what he was about to say. But he knew he had to say it, had to get it out there. He looked up at his family and, with tears starting to form in his eyes, stated, "I thought if I told you I started the fire, you wouldn't let me explain it was an accident and wouldn't love me anymore."

His family looked at him with wide eyes and dropped jaws as they processed what he had just said. They shared glances at each other, unsure of what to say. Finally, Lori stepped forward, crouched down to her brother's level, looked him in the eyes…

SLAP!

Lincoln almost wasn't sure what had just happened. He held his cheek that his oldest sister had just slapped. He looked back at her, expecting a cold glare, but instead was met with a look of determination, pity, and…love?

"Lincoln Loud, you listen to me!" Lori said in a calm, yet determined tone, "Did we stop loving you when you posted those embarrassing videos of us online?" Lincoln shook his head. "Did we stop loving you when you made that dress situation worse than it already was, all the while acting like you knew exactly how to fix it?" Lincoln shook his head. "That greenhouse incident? The pool incident? The day you clogged the toilet and didn't immediately take the blame, making us all miss half our Saturday?" Despite the annoyance at that last one, Lincoln shook his head. "And did YOU stop loving us after we kicked you out because we thought you were bad luck? Or that time I forced you to go on a date with Ronnie Anne? Or when Luna, Luan, Lynn, and Lucy forced you to juggle 4 dates at the Sadie Hawken's Dance? Or ANY of the times we've driven you up the wall?" Once again, Lincoln shook his head. "RIGHT! Because we are a family, and when we screw up, we are there for each other! Lincoln, we are NOT upset that you started the fire. If anything, we're upset that you thought you couldn't come to us about this. We will always love you, and that will never change!"

At that, the rest of the family smiled, all saying things like, "Totally" and "You know it" while nodding and sending sympathetic looks to the sole Loud brother.

Lincoln felt tears welling up in his eyes again, but this time, they were tears of relief as he threw his arms around Lori and cried into her chest. Slowly, the rest of the family joined in the group hug, all murmuring love to Lincoln, who gladly accepted it.

After a minute, the family parted, with Lynn Sr. sighing, "Well, this will definitely require some damage control. Hopefully when you admit the fire was an accident and that you felt too afraid to come forward, you'll get off a little easier."

"Lincoln won't have to go to juvie, will he?" Lynn asked, instinctively grabbing her brother's arm and pulling him close to her.

"There's no real way of knowing until we talk to a lawyer," Rita sighed, "Sadly, just thinking it over, BEST case scenario in this situation is probably a couple hundred hours of community service and a record."

Lincoln sighed at that, looking to the ground. Lucy frowned at this, before an idea came to her, "Lincoln, if you tell everyone you tried to put out the fire, that might help."

"But would they believe him?" Luan asked, unknowingly preventing her brother from speaking, "After all, he didn't say anything after it happened, or after he got all those rewards. Even though it was stress and guilt, that still won't make him look too truthful." Lincoln frowned at this, realizing it was very true.

"Well, then you can show the picture," Lucy said, and Lincoln's eyes went wide. The family turned towards Lucy in confusion.

"Picture?" Lori asked, looking back and forth between Lucy and Lincoln.

Lincoln bit his lip, not sure what his entire family would say about this next part, "Um, ya see…someone knows I started the fire, and, well…" At that, Lincoln told the family of his blackmailer, from the walkie in the bathroom to the picture he had gotten attached to his locker the previous day.

Needless to say, by the time Lincoln was done, the entire family, even Mom and Dad, was absolutely livid. They were all standing there, shaking with rage, making Lincoln a little nervous.

Finally, it was Luna who spoke up, "So, you've been going through all this stress, worrying about going to juvie and losing the love of your friends and family…" At this, the rocker paused as she took another moment to calm down, "And some low-life piece of SH!T has the NERVE to make you even more miserable than you already are by blackmailing you?!"

"Who is it, Linc?" Lynn asked, gritting her teeth, "I'll make them wish they were dead. No! I'll make them wish they were never born! NO! I'll make them wish their PARENTS were never born!"

At that, the Loud sisters started talking about what they would do when they got their hands on their brother's blackmailer.

On the one hand, it made Lincoln feel good to know his family had his back in this (unlike the times he dealt with bullies, he was actually grateful for this) but on the other hand, he was worried they were getting too off track of the current issue.

"Guys!" He exclaimed, getting his family's attention right as Rita was explaining how she planned to strangle the punk who was messing with her baby boy, "I appreciate this, I really do, but right now we need to focus on what Lucy said." At that, Lincoln reached into his back pocket and pulled out the photo. He had been unsure at the time, but right before he exited his room, he had placed the photo from the blackmailer in his pocket. He was glad he had.

He opened the photo and showed it to his family. They looked at their brother's terrified expression as he tried to put out the fire with the fire extinguisher, only for the flames to crawl on the foam.

"Hold it!" Lisa cried out, reaching forward and snatching the picture out of Lincoln's hand. She studied it closely, while the rest of the family held their breath in anticipation, wondering what the young genius had noticed.

"This…this is impossible," Lisa muttered after what felt like an eternity, "There's no way that the flames should be able to crawl on the fire extinguisher's foam."

"I thought that part was odd, too," Lincoln admitted, "But I didn't really have time to think about it before the flames made it to the fire extinguisher itself and made it explode."

Lisa looked at her brother with a raised eyebrow, "Ok, something clearly doesn't add up here. The most logical guess I can come up with is that someone must have tainted the fire extinguisher, emptying at least half of it before pouring some type of fire starter into it."

"Wait a minute!" Luan said, looking at her family in shock, "Didn't the news report say that someone had laced the science lab with some type of man-made fire starter?"

"Yeah," Lynn nodded, "It was vegetable oil and tequila."

"Two highly flammable substances," Lisa muttered. She stared at the photo for a second longer, before turning to her brother, "Lincoln, based on this picture, I am now certain that you were set up."

"Really?" Lincoln asked, uncertain; after all, he didn't wanna get his hopes up that there MAY be a way out of juvie and/or expulsion.

"Yes," Lisa nodded, "But to be sure, I need you to explain exactly what happened that day."

Lincoln nodded, and recalled how he had run the errand for Mrs. Johnson, and how that ended with him accidentally starting the fire.

Lisa stared at her brother, rubbing her chin in thought. Finally, she sighed, "That's not enough, Lincoln, but I think I know what we can do." At that, the genius turned towards her Gothic sister, "Lucy, didn't you state you were starting to look into mastering hypnosis?"

Lucy nodded, "I've heard hypnotizing one's self can be the best way to fully embrace the darkness. But I've only been able to get myself to fall asleep. Why?"

"Because I think hypnotizing our dear brother would be the best way to get him to remember exactly what happened the day of the fire," Lisa explained, "However, it has been a few months since I last worked on my hypnosis projects. As such, I require your assistance in putting our brother under."

No one said anything for a moment as Lucy thought over Lisa's suggestion. Lincoln was nervous about the idea, but if it could prove he didn't start the fire (and thus could put this whole mess behind him), then he was all for it.

Right as Lucy opened her mouth to say something, they all heard the SLAM across the hall.

"They must be checking all the rooms," Rita muttered, looking at the door in worry before turning to Lucy and Lisa, "Whatever you two are gonna do, do it fast." The two nodded, as Dad and the older girls began (quickly and quietly) moving things in front of the door to board it up.

As Lucy and Lisa were muttering quietly to each other about what needed to be done, Lola and Lana grabbed a chair, placed a pillow on the seat, and pushed it to their brother, who sat down, worriedly looking around.

As Lucy and Lisa made their ways towards their brother, Lincoln realized what was wrong with this scene: the McBrides, Santiagos, and Lintons were nowhere in sight. "Where are the others?"

"After you confessed and ran off, some cops made their way to our table," Lori explained, as she and Leni pushed a spa bed in front of the door, "While we were kinda freaking out, Sammy spoke up that there had to be more to the story, and said that we should go find you guys while they all held off everyone wanting to question and/or arrest us."

"I hope they're doing ok," Leni muttered, almost pained to think about her boyfriend getting arrested due to her family.

"I'm certain they are all doing fine," Lisa said, giving a dismissive wave of the hand to her two oldest sisters, "Now, I need quiet so I can concentrate. Lucy?"

Lucy stepped forward, "I don't have my hypnosis kit with me, so Great Grandma Harriet's lucky coin will have to do." At that, she held up a gold dollar and began moving it around in her fingers in front of her brother's eyes.

Lisa studied the picture one last time before turning to her brother, "Lincoln, you need to TRY and get relaxed. While you're hypnotized, you will need to talk out loud to tell us everything that you remember. Basically, this will mentally place you back to that day, everything being the exact same as it was."

"But guys," Lincoln moaned, "Even if I AM being set up, and even if I DO end up remembering something from this hypnosis gimmick, how are we gonna PROVE it to the everyone? Especially since all the cops in this place will likely arrest us before we could even get two words out."

Lisa sighed, a look of unease on her face, "As much as I hate to do it this way, we need to go one step at a time. First, we get you to remember EVERYTHING, and after that, hopefully this picture will buy us enough time to explain ourselves."

Lincoln sighed as he fell back into his chair while Luan and Luna began rubbing his shoulders. He was just beyond thankful that his family hadn't turned their backs on him. Except now, they may end up going down with him.

Lincoln groaned as Lisa began, "Clear your mind, go back to that day. You have just handed Professor Thompson the flash drive from Mrs. Johnson…"

* * *

 _Lincoln opened his eyes and looked around. He was back in the last hallway of the school, and Professor Thompson's door was shutting._

" _I just handed it to him," Lincoln said, remembering that he needed to talk out loud so his family could hear him, "Now I'm starting to walk back to the cafeteria." Lincoln noticed that other than his mouth, he didn't have any control over his body._

 _Crrrrreeaakkk._

 _Lincoln's head turned to the source of the sound, the Science Lab door creaking open._

" _Science Lab door just opened," he said, "I'm walking over to shut it…and it just opened all the way. Stepping inside now."_

 _Lincoln gulped, somewhat nervous about reliving this somewhat traumatic experience. But he knew he had to do it. After all, Lisa said the picture made her certain he was set up. So if going through this hypnotic nightmare could prevent him from having to go to juvie (or possibly worse), then he would do it._

* * *

In the Spa prep room, the Loud family was nervously standing around, watching as the second youngest and fifth youngest hypnotized the sole Loud brother. Mom and Dad were guarding the door, Luna and Luan were massaging Lincoln's shoulders to keep him relaxed (while making sure not to stare at Lucy's coin), and the rest were just standing around, not sure what all to do.

Of course, most were thinking about how much things had changed in just a short amount of time. Not even half-an-hour ago, they were listening to some of their town's finest heroes give speeches about what they did, and were getting ready to hear Lincoln's speech. Obviously all of them had noticed how uncomfortable Lincoln had been with coming to this, but each had just thought he was not used to having the spotlight on himself. At least, not in such a positive way.

The dress incident, the luck debacle, the clogged toilet, the greenhouse project; in the last year alone each sister could think of at least a dozen moments where they had been mad at their brother. Slowly, without them realizing it, each of the sisters' minds drifted to the same incident: the video contest. It had really hurt them that Lincoln had posted those embarrassing videos of them just to try and win a trophy. But now, now they understood why. Of course, they had figured out he felt inadequate to all of them at the time, but tonight made things so much clearer for all of them.

Each of them (save for maybe Lily) already knew what they wanted to do in life, but Lincoln didn't. He was, in a manner of speaking, a jack of all trades. He was always ready to help each of them out when they needed it, ready to sacrifice his time and fun for them. But how many of them were willing to do the same for him? Sure, Lisa would help him with his homework, and he and Luna were really close in general, but what else? Always his sisters came to him for help, and always he gave it to them. So, for the last couple weeks, they had all been extremely happy that their (mostly) selfless brother was FINALLY getting the recognition he deserved, his time to shine. He should have enjoyed it, but he couldn't, because it was all built on a lie.

Luna was, understandably, the most upset by these turns of events. Lincoln was her little bro, her best friend, and yet she hadn't been able to figure out what was wrong with him. She had slept with him for these past two weeks, comforting him, and yet every night he was just lying awake, too nervous and wracked with guilt to sleep. Why hadn't she noticed? Why hadn't she been just a little bit pushier when confronting him about his stress? Why…

At that, Luna glanced out of the corner of her eye at Lucy. Why had Lincoln confided in Lucy and not her? Yes, as previously stated, Leni and Lucy were raked in with Luna as Lincoln's closest sisters, but the rock-loving sis had always thought she herself was at the top. Granted, in the last few months they had grown a little apart, but still, she remembered singing lullabies to Lincoln when he was a baby and couldn't sleep. She remembered singing to him when he was upset (usually thanks to preteen Lori acting bossy or little Lynn rough housing with him). She remembered right before last summer when Lincoln got sick and the rest of the family quarantined him in his room, and she was the only one who took the risk to go in his room and take care of him.

"I understand you are feeling jealous," Lucy spoke up, startling Luna, as well as most of the room's occupants, "But you must understand Lincoln has essentially been put in the hardest situation of his life. With the guilt driving him up the wall, he needed to tell someone what happened, and I am the best secret keeper in the house, due to the fact that more often than not I am ignored."

Luna frowned at that, but sadly had to agree. After all, it hadn't been more than 3 or 4 weeks since the "spell" incident: tired of the rest of them ignoring and walking all over her, Lucy had started using Great Grandma Harriet's spell book to mess with her siblings, leading to her believing she had muted them. Since then, the family had agreed to be more open to Lucy's suggestions, and her to theirs. But even so, the fact remained that, if you wanted a secret kept in the Loud house, Lucy was the best person to tell.

"Scraping sound."

At that, the family turned their attention back to Lincoln, who was still muttering what he remembered.

"I'm pulling the paper towels out, but there's a light…light scraping sound," Lincoln murmured, tossing around a little, "Not like when you usually pull out a paper towel, but…more."

Lisa pursed her lips at that. It may seem insignificant, but something about it just sounded too off to the young genius.

The next couple minutes were agonizing for the Louds, as they had to listen to Lincoln start to panic as he relived the fire, trying to put it out, dropping the exploding fire extinguisher, running through the halls to pull the fire alarm, all while worrying he may have caused serious harm to his friends and/or family. During this time, Luna and Luan gently squeezed their brother's shoulders to calm him, as they noticed that tears were starting to roll down his cheeks.

"Awake!" Lucy commanded with a snap of her fingers. Lincoln's eyes shot open and he looked around to see the worried looks on his sisters' and parents' faces.

"Oh, sweetie!" Rita rushed forward and wrapped her son in a hug, comforting him as he choked out light sobs. "I can't believe you've been going through all of this. And you thought you couldn't come to us? I am so sorry we couldn't be there for you."

Lincoln sniffled, "It's my fault for not telling you guys."

"Look, whatever happened happened," Lori sighed, "Right now, we gotta-"

BANG! BANG! BANG!

Everyone paused as they all looked to the door, which was slowly being forced open. Lynn Sr. and Jr. both rushed to it and tried to force it closed, but whoever was on the other side was too strong, and slowly the door forced itself open. On the other side was Chief O'Bannon, Tetherby, and half-a-dozen police officers.

Scanning the room, O'Bannon's eyes locked on Lincoln, still in his mother's arms. "Lincoln Loud! You are under arrest for arson!" At that, he and his fellow officers moved towards the boy. Rita instinctively twisted around, placing Lincoln behind her and glaring daggers at the cops, silently daring them to even try and take her baby boy from her.

"WAIT!" Luna cried, as she and the rest of the sisters threw themselves in front of the police officers, "Lincoln didn't start the fire!"

Chief O'Bannon looked at the rock loving Loud sister as he narrowed his eyes, "Then who did?"

"Who did, indeed!" Tetherby stepped forward, "I have it on good authority that Loud here DID start the fire! Just ask my nephew, he has proof!"

At that, Tetherby's nephew stepped forward, and Lincoln's heart sunk at seeing who it was, 'Oh crud!'

* * *

 **You guys didn't really think I'd turn the family against Lincoln, did you? Like Lori said, they're MORE upset by the fact that he actually thought they would stop loving him than they are about him starting the fire.**

 **So now Lisa thinks her brother may have been set up, yet Tetherby's nephew may have something to say about that. Who IS Tetherby's nephew? Is he someone we know? Well, Lincoln knows him, so it's a strong possibility. Also, I won't spoil it, but I'm sure most of you can guess that the nephew is a certain someone else.**

 **Also, for that part where the sisters are all contemplating their brother, I just figured the heat of the moment would make them start to see Lincoln a little better than they already do.**

 **Anyway, just one more main chapter, followed by an epilogue. R &R **


	9. The Big Finish

**First off, Happy 1-year anniversary for this story. Time really does fly, huh?**

 **Second, apologies in general regarding my fanfics. For my fanfics:**

 **-Dave Five Nights at Freddy's is on indefinite hiatus.**

 **-An Electrifying Adventure (and the shared universe it is starting) will be updated soon, with a shift in schedule to hopefully update it AT LEAST once a month.**

 **-My Loud House Stories will continue to be my top priority. I am almost done with the next chapter of A Bit Dramatic for My Taste and BITF Redo Extended. Continuing Awake is also a possibility.**

 **So, onto this.**

 **Wow, this chapter did NOT want to get written. Ignoring my flash drive breaking, it was just kinda hard to figure out a good way to end this without seeming like I wanted to please everyone. But, I'm happy with it, so that's all that really matters.**

 **Also, I'd like to clear up a little misunderstanding: I am not in favor of the "meaner sisters vs. nicer sisters" plot so many LH fanfic authors like to use. A reviewer pointed out to me that Lincoln loves all of his sisters equally, and I completely agree. However, in this story, I have only stated that Lincoln is CLOSER to a few of his sisters over others. And I think that makes perfect sense. After all, in a family of 11 siblings, it's not like they're all 100% close with each other all the time. For instance, despite the occasional fights, I imagine the roommates are all best friends with each other, which we have seen in a few episodes. As for Lincoln, I stated that he is closest to Luna, Lucy, and Leni. Yes, they are part of the nicer sisters, yet this is because I believe they WOULD be closest to their brother. Lucy knows what it's like to be overlooked by the rest of the family, Leni is nice to everyone, and is also the only one who regularly calls Lincoln "Linky", and Luna was SUPPOSED to be Lincoln's closest sister, yet the show hasn't really shown it too much. And the whole point of these last couple of chapters was that Lincoln needed to tell someone about the fire, so obviously he was gonna tell one of his closest sisters. Leni couldn't really do much to help, so that left Luna and Lucy, and I chose Lucy so I could add a little bit of inner drama for Luna last chap.**

 **So yeah, there ya go. Enjoy.  
**

* * *

Lincoln had learned from a young age that life was not fair. This almost always seemed especially true for him in particular. Anytime he wanted something for himself, it seemed like there was some obstacle in his way. And 9 times out of 10, that obstacle would be in the form of at least one of his sisters.

The Loud family loved each other, and would always have each other's backs. Heck, as far as Lincoln could remember, his parents had never had even a tiny disagreement, let alone some big argument. And the kids were always there for each other, ready to help with things such as bullies and crushes. Despite this, they were still a family of 11 siblings, and as such, had each developed a slight "every man for himself" way of thinking. If one of them wanted something that was not 100% specific to their personal hobbies, then they would all try to get it.

The sweet spot, Hugh, treats at the grocery store. Just a few examples of him vs. his sisters that Lincoln could think up off the top of his head. Because of this, Lincoln had learned he needed to be smarter than his sisters in order to get ahead in life. Not really smarter, even, just sneakier. It hardly ever worked, but every once in a while, life threw him a bone.

Of course, this time that life had thrown him a bone, well…it was the one time he NEEDED his sisters to be all up in his business. For two weeks Lincoln had been unable to eat or sleep. He managed to eat just enough and lay still in bed all night so his body could stay functioning. But other than that, he was a mess. And his sisters hadn't even noticed.

Actually, that's not fair to say. They HAD noticed that their brother was acting differently, yet each of them was aware that they usually gave their bro grief and stole the spotlight, so they simply overlooked his exhaustion and stress because of everything that was going on. They simply figured Lincoln was not used to having so much good happen to him and him alone, that it was messing with him. A free limo, free passes on school work, a few girls flirting with him, and now being named Guest of Honor at a hero party. Yeah, even ditzy Leni was aware that this was not something that happened to her Linky every day.

It took a little while, but slowly a few of his sisters had begun to notice that something was seriously wrong with their bro. Luna had, of course, been the first to notice, due to the fact that she tended to be the most overprotective of her little brother. Lucy came next, and of course Lisa and Lori followed suit. Now they all knew, but it was really too late to do anything about all that happened.

At least, that's what Lincoln was thinking as he saw his classmate, Chandler Perry, step forward and wrap his arms around Tetherby's waist.

"It's true, Great-Uncle Alan!" Chandler cried, trying to appear upset, "Larry started the fire. I saw the whole thing."

The police officers turned towards Lincoln and the Louds, looking at them with fury in their eyes.

"I did not!" Lincoln cried, pausing as he realized what he said, "On purpose! I didn't do it on purpose, it was an accident."

"He may not have even started it at all," Lisa spoke up, yet Chief O'Bannon was the only one who even looked in her direction.

"If it was an accident," O'Bannon asked, turning back towards Lincoln, "Why didn't you come forward as soon as it happened?"

"Because they found that fire starter," Lincoln said, trying not to sound as desperate as he felt, "I knew if I came forward, no one would believe me when I tried to explain that the fire was an accident."

"But you told everyone about your heroic exploits," Tetherby countered, "Clearly you wanted to soak up the fame from claiming to be a hero."

"No!" Lincoln shook his head, "My sisters were telling me to cool down about the fire, and I got fed up and revealed I ran through the flames, and when Leni told everyone that, I thought I was done for, so I confessed on live TV. But because I said, _"I did it"_ , everyone assumed I meant that I pulled the fire alarm, and all this hero nonsense spiraled out of control from there. Anytime I tried to brush it off, everyone thought I was just being modest. I didn't know what to do."

"That's a lie!" Chandler cried, before O'Bannon or any of the officers could say anything, "Larry started the fire on purpose so he could look like a hero."

"Wait, if you saw the whole thing," Leni spoke up, glaring at the boy who had nearly gotten her best friend fired from her job by manipulating their brother, "Why did you wait until tonight to come forward?"

The police officers all turned their attention to Chandler. Chandler didn't even flinch as he glared right back, "Don't act like you don't know, dumbo."

"Don't call me a dumbo!" Leni snapped. The second-oldest Loud knew very well she was not that smart, and absolutely hated it when someone pointed it out.

"Sorry," Chandler said, still smirking, "Didn't mean to insult your intelligence, bimbo."

Leni bared her teeth and was about to charge at the boy, but Lori put her hand on her sister's shoulder and gave her a look that said, _"He's not worth it."_

"Chandler, my boy, stop insulting the lower class," Tetherby spoke up, "And tell these officers how you know that Loud started the fire, as well as why you didn't come forward sooner."

At that, Chandler put a worried look on his face as he turned away from the Louds and faced his uncle, "Are…are ya sure it's ok, Great-Uncle Alan?" He wrung his hands, "Larry said I would be sorry if I ratted him out."

Tetherby placed a hand on Chandler's shoulder as he crouched down, a warm smile on his face, "Chandler, I promise you that Loud here can NOT hurt you. You are in a safe place. So please, my boy, tell us exactly what happened. And you!" He glared at the Loud family, "If any of you try to interrupt my nephew, I will personally purchase both of your parents' places of work and not only fire them, but make sure they are blacklisted in that line of work!"

Despite glaring at Chandler and Tetherby, the Loud sisters all nodded.

"Ok," Chandler sighed, looking down, trying to look upset, "I had just gone to the bathroom before heading to lunch. I used the one in the back hallway because it is…was the cleanest one in school. Anyway, as I was heading towards the lunch room, I looked around and marveled at how quiet it was. I absent-mindedly looked towards the end of the hall, where I saw Larry standing outside of the science lab door. He was looking around, before he snuck inside. I could instantly tell he was up to no good, so I followed him. I got to the door and peeked in, where I saw him pouring a bottle of vegetable oil and a bottle of tequila all over the room. He then pulled out a match as he tossed the bottles aside. I gasped in shock, causing him to turn around and see me. I panicked and took off running." He sighed in shame, "I feel like a coward for not trying to stop him, but I was just so afraid by the look of pure insanity on his face." At that, Chandler paused as he took a couple of deep breaths, as though to avoid crying. Tetherby gently pulled him in for a hug, telling him to take his time.

"I…I made it to the fire alarm at the end of the hall and pulled it down, but before I could run, Larry grabbed me by the shoulder and told me that if I told anyone what I saw, he'd sic his psycho sisters on me." Chandler paused, as a sigh escaped his lips, "He then said that HE would take credit for pulling the fire alarm, to make himself look like a hero. I promised I would listen to him, just so long as he didn't hurt me. Larry smirked and patted my cheek, saying it was good that I knew my place. After that, we both ran out of the building, and I hurried over to my friends. After that, I kept quiet, avoiding Larry unt-"

"HIS NAME IS LINCOLN!" The Loud sisters had finally had enough of the fact that Chandler was obviously forgetting their brother's name on purpose.

Chandler glared at the girls, as did Tetherby. Nonetheless, the brat continued, "I avoided _Lincoln_ for the next few days, until the following Tuesday, when I was heading to the bathroom around lunchtime. As I was about to head into the restroom, Lincoln grabbed me and slammed me into the lockers, telling me that I had better start showing him respect, since he was gonna be the most popular kid in school from now on. I fearfully said I would- still ashamed of how cowardly I acted- and begged him not to hurt me. He simply smirked that cruel smirk of his as he slugged me in the gut. I clutched my stomach in pain as he walked away, telling me he felt like ditching the rest of the day as he hopped in one of the stalls. And then today-"

"THAT'S ENOUGH!" Lincoln cried, tired of hearing Chandler make him look like some thug, "I did NONE of that! The fire was an accident, and while I may not have come forward about it, I never threatened Chandler or even talked to him in these last couple weeks. The only time we spoke was that Tuesday when he tried to get ME to join his gang of popular jerks. I told him no, and he got mad and told me that I'm a loser who doesn't know my place. After that, I didn't even see him until tonight. I've been too busy going crazy over my guilt."

"Going crazy?" Chief O'Bannon asked, raising an eyebrow.

Lincoln sighed in misery, "I can't eat without feeling sick to my stomach or sleep without having nightmares. As such, for these past two weeks I've only eaten and slept enough to stay functioning. I've started having hallucinations and constantly feel like I'm going to pass out. All food smells delicious, yet at the same time it makes me queasy. And something I haven't thought of that JUST came to me, I'm more than certain I've lost a good few pounds from not eating. Last night was the first time I've actually been able to sleep nightmare free, because I told my sister Lucy that I started the fire. When I did that, a huge weight was lifted off my shoulders. But even so, I'm still wracked with guilt for causing all of this and getting my family involved." His mini-rant done, Lincoln looked at the floor and sighed miserably.

Chief O'Bannon rubbed his chin in thought. He had two sides of the story, and Chandler's did seem to hold more weight. Yet Lincoln sounded genuine, like he was truly upset with what had happened.

"Do you have any way to back up your story, Lincoln?" The police chief finally asked, "We've got two sides here, so in order for me to take you seriously, I need proof."

"How about this?" Lisa asked, walking up to Chief O'Bannon with the picture. He took it, and Lisa continued, "Clearly, someone had to have known the fire was going to happen, hence being able to take this picture. As such, I believe that someone planned the fire, setting things up so some random sucker- in this case my brother- would accidently set off the "Mouse Trap" chain of events. Then, this arsonist would not only be able to destroy the school, but also have a patsy to take the fall. And since he clearly just LIED about what truly happened that day, one can safely assume that Chandler is both the true arsonist AND the blackmailer."

"That's a load of baloney!" Chandler cried, slowly moving to behind Tetherby, "I'm a good boy. Not like Lincoln here. He's clearly desperate for attention. Heck, look at the family. I'm sure there are times that they forget he even exists. No wonder he set the school on fire."

"Chandler," Chief O'Bannon spoke up, staring at the photo intently, "Did you see Lincoln go for the fire extinguisher before you took off running?"

"Uh…no," Chandler shook his head, "I was too distracted by the fact that the fire alarm broke off in my hand, so I just took off down the hall to the other one."

"Wait!" Lincoln spoke up, slowly feeling the weight fall off his shoulders, "You said you ran to the alarm at the end of the hall first. How would you know the fire alarm right outside the science lab broke off in my hand…unless you did something to it?"

Everyone in the room noticed that Chandler seemed to be sweating now, but he kept his cool as he said, "I merely forgot to mention that part. It's…stressful having to relive what happened."

"Yes, yes it is," Lincoln said, his stress slowly turning to rage, "It's stressful having to relive the fact that I accidentally burned down the school. It's stressful having to think about the fact that everyone I love could end up turning against me. But what's most stressful is the fact that after all I've been through, I MAY NOT HAVE NEEDED TO WORRY AT ALL, BECAUSE I MAY HAVE BEEN SET UP! AND THE SCUMBAG WHO MAY HAVE SET ME UP IS STANDING RIGHT HERE IN FRONT OF ME, LYING AND TRYING TO MAKE ME FEEL LIKE A COMMON CRIMINAL!"

Everyone was quite shocked at Lincoln's outburst. Before anyone could say anything, Chandler jumped at Lincoln and pinned him down, punching him a few times before Luna and Luan grabbed him and pulled him off. They tossed him back towards Tetherby, who caught him and steadied him.

Luna bent down to Lincoln and helped him up as she looked him over, "Bro, are you ok?"

"I'll be fine," Lincoln replied, rubbing his sore face, "But I'm sure I'll have some bruises."

"Chandler, I know you're upset about Loud trying to make you his scapegoat, but violence is not the answer," Tetherby said, getting down on his knee and placing a hand on Chandler's shoulder, trying to console his nephew.

"R…right," Chandler said, starting to sweat even more as the officers in the room, including Chief O'Bannon, turned their glares from the Louds to him, "Just, uh, just always kind of hated Lincoln, so…" He paused, as he started to realize his goose was cooked.

"Chandler," Chief O'Bannon spoke up, "I'm starting to get the feeling that between the two of you, Lincoln is NOT the liar, so why don't you tell your story again, but change what needs to be changed."

Chandler's eye was twitching, and Lincoln was feeling all the stress that had been building up inside him over the last couple weeks slowly start to subside.

"I want a lawyer," Chandler chocked out, glancing at the door to see if he could make a run for it.

"Chandler," Tetherby spoke up, sighing in slight misery, "You are my great-nephew, and I shall always love you. But one thing I have always valued among all else is that the law must be upheld. As such, if you are truly the one who started the fire, I can only stand behind you if you confess. Otherwise, I will have to disown you."

Chandler looked at his great-uncle in shock, as did the Louds. They especially didn't think Tetherby had any kind of moral code. They figured he was just as bad as his rotten great-nephew.

Lisa took this moment of uncomfortable silence to step forward, "Chandler, I theorize you set up the fire in order to make someone else "technically" start it. Based on what my brother has told us, there are some things only you can fill us in on."

"Well, that's an interesting theory," Chandler was noticeably sweating now, "But of course, you have no way of proving any of it. Now, as previously stated, I want a lawyer before I am questioned about this ludicrous idea anymore."

"Blackmailed to Blackmailer, come in! Blackmailed to Blackmailer, are you there?"

Everyone looked at Chandler. Namely, towards his pocket where they herd the cry of a walkie. Before anyone could say anything, Lana walked out from behind her family, holding the walkie that Lincoln had given her last week.

"Lincoln gave me this walkie and asked me to destroy it, which I agreed to," She explained, "But I got curious as to why he wanted me to. So, I put some new batteries in it and figured I could find out later. I forgot about it until tonight. Luckily, I had it in my hat, which goes EVERYWHERE with me." Lana reached into her dress and pulled her signature red hat out and placed it on her head. "After everything Lincoln told us, it was pretty easy to deduce that this walkie belonged to the blackmailer. And of course, as any good movie has shown us, the villain ALWAYS forgets that they have the smoking gun on them at all times."

The police all glared at Chandler after this explanation. The boy started sweating even more at this point. Chief O'Bannon stepped up to him and held out his hand.

"The walkie, Chandler." It was a demand, not a request.

As Chandler reluctantly reached into his jacket pocket and pulled out the walkie, Lincoln spoke up, "The voice on the other end sounds like a standard voice modulator, obviously meant to hide his identity."

Chief O'Bannon nodded, before speaking into the walkie, "Hello?"

Sure enough, a deep sounding, "Hello?" came from the other walkie. By now, EVERYONE was glaring at Chandler.

Chandler looked at the police officers staring him down, his great uncle frowning at him, the Louds smirking at him, and Lincoln glaring at him. Taking a deep breath, he sighed, "Fine, I admit it! I, Chandler Daniel Perry, confess to starting the fire that burned down my elementary school. I just finally got tired of the same old thing all the time, and needed some excitement. As such, I came up with the idea of starting a small fire and putting it out to be a hero, then it kind of…grew."

"Grew?" Chief O'Bannon asked.

"I came up with the idea of just getting rid of the school once and for all," Chandler admitted, "So I came up with the idea to use the science lab to start the fire. I also came up with the idea to do it during lunch when everyone was at the other end of the school so no one would be hurt. My original plan was to trick Professor Thompson into doing it as a scapegoat, but right when I was getting ready to knock on his door to get his attention…I saw Lincoln. I remembered how humiliating it was that one of the biggest dorks in school didn't show up to my party after I invited him, so I changed my plan. I got my phone out and put it in the camera setting and made sure to be ready to record. I listened while he and Professor Thompson talked, then gently pushed the door open. I hurried out the window and watched as the beaker of homemade lighter fluid fell off the table, and Lincoln got some paper towels to wipe it up." At that, Chandler paused and glared at Lincoln, "This is where the missing pieces fall into place."

"You did something to the paper towel dispenser, didn't you?" Lisa asked, recalling the oddness of the scraping sound Lincoln had described.

"Yeah," Chandler nodded, "I had it specially made. I emptied the one on the wall so the one on the desk would be the only one to use. I then squirted some of the fire starter into the trashcan and pulled a bunch of paper towels out so it would be ready."

"Ready?" Lincoln asked, confused.

Chandler rolled his eyes as he continued, "The paper towel dispenser was made with a different side. Basically, he length of it was a long "V" that could stay in place until it was too full. Then, it would tip and dump whatever was in it to the side. As for what was in it…" At this, the brat actually chuckled, "I had it rigged so that when a paper towel was pulled out of it, a piece of sand paper would ru against a match. Not enough to light it, but enough to make a few embers."

Lincoln's eyes went wide as he started piecing everything together, "That's what the scraping sound was! And when I turned, the side tipped over and emptied into the trashcan where there was already some of the fire starter AND some paper to act as "kindling". So, when I put those paper towels of the stuff on top of them…"

"Fire, baby!" Chandler smirked, "I caught the whole thing on tape. I was planning on just messing with you for a while, leaving you pictures to make you think someone was on to you. But then when you were praised for your heroic actions, well…" Another chuckle escaped Chandler's throat, "It was just too much fun. Wasn't expecting you to stand up tp me. After you told me off, I thought about putting the video online, but when I talked to you the next day, I could see you were losing it, and upon hearing that Great-Uncle Alan made you the GOH of this year's Hero Party, well, my mind just kept coming up with new ways to mess with you."

"You're messed up," Lincoln glared at Chandler, "All of this just because you hate school? Even if you knew everyone was at the farthest point away from the fire, you still could have hurt a lot of people. Not to mention how bad I've been feeling because I thought it was ME that had done all of that. I just…I just can't believe someone my age could be so…so…mentally ill."

"Eh," Chandler shrugged, "I guess I'm a budding pyromaniac. Wonder what I'll burn down next?"

"Noting," Chief O'Bannon spoke up, "Because you're in big trouble, young man." He grabbed Chandler and started leading him out the door, "I can only imagine what everyone will say when they hear this."

"I can read you some of the comments," Lisa spoke up, gaining everyone's attention. She pulled out her phone, which had been tucked away in her dress, "After Lincoln told us what happened with the fire, I knew something was up, so I've been recording this whole conversation live to the school website. Apparently, the media has also picked up on it." Lisa took a moment to look over her phone, "Pretty much everyone is pitying Lincoln and condemning Chandler."

"I'll need you to make a statement, Lincoln," O'Bannon said over his shoulder as he lead Chandler from the room.

Lincoln sighed, having expected no less. At the very least, it was all…

"Over," he muttered, watching the officers file out of the room. After an agonizing two weeks, it was finally over. He didn't have to feel guilty anymore, he didn't have to worry about losing his sisters' love. He could finally relax.

*thud*

The family looked towards Lincoln, who had fallen back and was laying on the floor, staring up at the ceiling.

None of them said anything, as there was both too much AND nothing to say. Rita picked Lincoln up and carried him to the limo. On the ride home, Lincoln fell asleep, and Rita ultimately carried him to his room and changed him into his pajamas. Based on everything that had happened, the girls knew their brother would likely sleep for most of the weekend, and when he woke up, he would probably be starving.

Sure enough, they were right. Lincoln slept all the way through the weekend, finally getting up at around 6 on Sunday evening, just in time for dinner. Mom and Dad said that Lincoln could stay at the adult table, because they felt he had truly earned it. However, they stated that they were going OUT for dinner tonight. They went to the Little Slice of Italy Buffet; it had everything from pizza to pasta to seven different kinds of breadsticks. Needless to say, Lincoln DEFINITELY took advantage of the "all you can eat" part of the buffet.

Afterwards, the family went home, where they watched the new _Dream Boat_ before bedtime. They all knew Lincoln would have a rough couple of days ahead, what with the press and school and all. But this was one time when they could cross that bridge when they came to it.

Tonight, both Luna AND Lucy slept with their brother, and he was happy for the company. As the house quieted down and the lights all turned off, Lincoln smiled up to the viewer, "Well, this has been an interesting couple of weeks for sure. But I guess I learned a very important lesson: everyone screws up from time to time, and ya gotta take responsibility for your actions. But if you're not sure what to do, your family can always be counted on to be there for you."

At that, Lincoln wrapped one arm around Luna and the other around Lucy as the three snuggled close together.

* * *

 **There ya have it, the end. Technically. There will be a short epilogue which will help showcase some of my future LH stories. But as for the main story, it's done. I hope you all have enjoyed. For this chapter, I decided not to go too big and have everything wrap up nicely.**

 **For Chandler, his name is a reference to both his voice actor (Daniel Divenere) and Chandler from** _ **Friends**_ **(played by Matthew Perry).**

 **Also, I just HAVE to give a shout** **out to** **Exotos135** **, who** **guessed it was Chandler after just 1 chapter.**

 **As always, R &R :)**


	10. Epilogue

**I wanna apologize to everyone for the massive delay. Like I said, my flash drive broke, and I've been dealing with some personal issues.**

 **Here's the epilogue. I do have another full story, as well a couple extended oneshots (length-wise about the same as my Used and Abused story) that chronologically take place before this epilogue. Also, my Dramatic fanfic takes place before this whole story.**

 **Anyway, enjoy :)  
**

* * *

"Lincoln Loud!"

Applause erupted from the gymnasium as the white-haired boy went up to receive his diploma.

Quite a bit had happened in the past couple of months. One of the main things was that the town had decided to transfer 6th Grade to the middle school, due to all the unused rooms. As such, 5th Grade was now the end of elementary school, which meant Lincoln was graduating a year earlier than planned.

Another thing that happened was that Lincoln was technically single now. Mrs. Santiago had decided that she didn't like her kids being home alone all the time, so she moved them a couple states over to live with their extended family. As a result, both Lori and Lincoln had had to say goodbye. It had hurt Lincoln at first, but he had his friends there to cheer him up.

As for the whole fire incident, well…

Chandler had been placed on an arsonist watch list. Basically the same thing as a sex offender list, just for pyromaniacs. He was also sentenced to six months in juvie, and would then be going to one of the country's toughest military schools for the rest of his school life.

For Lincoln, he had given a statement about what really happened the day of the fire, and how everything had just spiraled out of control from there. Ultimately, Lincoln faced no jail time, nor any community service or marks on his record. He did, however, have to give back the stuff.

Tetherby stated he was truly sorry for Lincoln, yet the GOH Hero Award needed to be confiscated. Mr. Savino also took back the limo; Lincoln and Kirby took it out for one last joyride to Burpin' Burger, before parting ways. Mrs. Johnson stated Lincoln would need to make up all the work she had given him a free pass on, though she gave him time to prepare.

All in all, these past couple months had basically returned the family to the status quo, which Lincoln was more than grateful for.

A few days ago, the family had attended Luan's middle school graduation, and now they were at Lincoln's. They sat in the front row cheering him on as he took the first graduation diploma of his school career.

Lincoln thanked Principal Huggins as he accepted his diploma, before taking his seat next to Clyde. The two fist bumped as the ceremony continued.

"You should give some kind of speech," Clyde whispered.

"Eh, I'm not valedictorian OR a hero, so I'm good," Lincoln whispered back. After his hero status ended, Lincoln was more than fine with no longer being the center of attention.

As he sat on stage, Lincoln looked out to his family. He just couldn't believe all that had happened and was going to happen. Lucy was doing so much better, Clyde seemed to have recovered, and all in all things seemed to be looking up. Lincoln would be going to middle school, Lily would be starting at that fancy daycare, Luan would be starting high school, Lori would be starting her last year of high school, it was just unreal.

As soon as the ceremony was over, the family was gonna head out to eat. Mom and Dad had plenty of stuff planned for the summer. A week-long cruise the family had won (which may or may not have been thanks to Lisa hacking some computers and rigging the contest), followed by camps and activities for the kids. These next two months were looking to be good.

"Just a couple weeks, then we get to go to Ace Savvy Future Comic Writers Camp," Lincoln whispered eagerly to Clyde, both of them biting their lips to avoid screaming in pure joy.

As the two listened to the principal finish the ceremony, Lincoln couldn't help but think over everything that had happened recently. He was glad to know he could count on his family to be there for him when he needed them.

The Loud family: chaotic, but caring. In some ways, they really were the perfect family.

* * *

 **So there ya have it. Like I said, I've got a couple other stories that take place before the epilogue, which were kind of alluded to here.**

 **Anyway, thanks to you all for following this story, hope you enjoy what's to come.**

 **Also, sorry for the long delay, just wanted to make sure that this was just right. And even though it's short, I feel it's a good conclusion.**


End file.
